"We were fishing the 95 bank on Tuesday morning and afternoon. Dave Hanson called me told me that he had been catching blue marlin there all week. We were grinding the high spot up when just before the tide our deckhand Pancho shouted up to me and told me he had just seen a big blue under the teasers. For what seemed like 2 minutes straight the massive blue marlin punished the teasers with at least 6 passes. We were all amazed by the size but had to idea the fish was as big as it was. Finally after what seemed like an eternity the fish dropped back behind the outrigger jig, Custom Steve Elkins Junior pop in the flying fish color, and inhaled the jig. The fish never really took to the air as the fight was deep. We only got a look at the fish once when it came out of the water in the distance. We all thought the fish was between 400-500 pounds. About 90 minutes into the flight after almost getting spooled 3 times the fight changed dramatically. It was apparent the fish had perished and we were just reeling in dead weight from the deep. It was very unfortunate for us as we had every intent on releasing the fish back to the ocean. When the fish finally appeared belly up off the transom we were all shocked at the actual size. It took us 30 minutes to wrestle the fish on the swim step. Once we heard the weight at the scales we were all shocked. We had tapped the fish out somewhere between 750-800. We didn't hear about the scale bottoming out at 750 until we were on our way home to Newport. The crew and I all agree that it was an amazing fish and the number didn't matter. We would have been much happier with a healthy release.
The crew consisted of
Captain Rob Petrina
Angler Gary Steelberg
Mate Pancho
Mate Ken Cicchelli
Chef Stacey Fetterman
Moral Support D'ette Steelberg"
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