Why I Have Been Inactive. Chasing Giant Black Marlin Fishing In Mozambique

Intro

Hi, everyone. I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. This past week has been one of the craziest experiences I have ever had in my life and one filled with celebrations. One of my favorite parts of life is fishing, and fishing for marlin is the epitome of the sport. With 5 am wake-up calls and getting back around 5 pm, I have been absolutely shattered.

But it all paid off...

5-16 On Black Marlin+ A Grander

Marlin fishermen can spend thousands of days on the water throughout their life and never see a thousand-pound fish, let alone catch one. Having only marlin fished about 40 days in my life, this is perhaps the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me in life.

Eventually, I'll get around to all of the reports individually (I am still working on Africa 1), but for now, I'll give you a brief summary.

The first day out on the water was slow, we had two come up on the swimbait but never loaded.

The second day, we went 1-2 on blacks and raised a third. This one was moderately sized, estimated at about 250. This was the last of the marlin species that I needed to catch, and finally, it was accomplished!

My First Black Marlin Ever

Isn't she a beauty

Pedal to the metal

Day 3, there's not much to report here, sadly. Went 0-2 with two bites once again coming in the morning.

Day 4: This is where the fishing really started to heat up. 4 am, woke up, had a couple of cups of coffee, and it was time to head out to the grounds. Luckily, we got a nice 25lb wahoo for dinner, but the day remained quiet. An hour before the tide change, we hooked up to another nice 250lb black. Two hours later, we saw another one come up on the swimbait, which was a little bigger at 300lb. Another nice fight and a fantastic way to finish off day 4.

Some pictures of the fish are below (all released apart from the wahoo).

Best dinner ever

Look at those colors

A gorgeous fish

Day 5: the day! Here is the story of a potentially grander

This was on our fifth and final day of fishing. The day before, we went 2-3 with a 250 and a 300 lbs, but we wanted a big ****. Day 5 comes along, and we get into a decent size (400lb) fish. It was a nice fight, and within 9 minutes, we had a sat tag deployed in it. Not even 45 minutes later, we had a 600 come up and load, but the hook sadly didn’t set. 

For the next 6 hours, we saw nada, and I mean nothing. Duarte (the captain) was telling me some old fishing stories and mentioned about this one girl who would shotgun a beer every 30 minutes, 12 beers later they caught a big ****. Now, I haven’t shotgunned a beer in a long time (as you can probably tell) but decided **** it, why not.

After shotgunning the beer, 25 minutes later, I, the first mate, see a real slob freejumping, I mean a real slob. Ordinarily, it’s quite hard to get on top of a free jumper as they move quite a lot, but it came out of the water a few minutes later, even closer to the boat. 

Not even 5 minutes passed, and I looked back at the far swimbait and saw this giant of a fish contemplating whether or not to eat this baby queenie. As Duarte put it, it was as if a submarine emerged from the water. The thing took it and jumped once during the whole fight, which was then. This thing was massive. 

An hour later, we released a fish at what we call 950+, but odds are it was 1100. Without getting a proper look up close, I don’t think it's properly fair to call it grander, especially my first. 

When it doubt, whip the shotgun out. I’ll explain more about the fight in a separate post when I get back to the US. 

A nice 400lb

Sadly no pics of the grander, would not cooperate

Anyway, I just wanted to share what I have been up to in the past week and why I haven't been posting much. I'm heading to South Sudan now to live with the Mundari Tribe, but starting next week, we are back to the regular schedule!