If you have a wall big enough to mount one of these larger-than-life beauties you will have a trophy guaranteed to amaze. People who have reason to know can tell you that [Black marlin fishing] just might be the ultimate sport fishing experience. Whether you haul the whole fish home for dinner for the whole town or just tag, brag and release, you will have a story to tell. The coloring of this spectacular creature is like that of an expensive and sophisticated automobile. The dorsal side, comparable to the convertible roof of your sports car, is not actually black but dark blue. The underside is silvery white with light blue racing stripes.
Fast Fish
These are high-performance fish. They can travel at speeds up to eighty miles an hour. That isn’t as fast as your sports car but it can unwind a lot of line off your reel in very little time. Like an interplanetary rocket, this fish is designed with a long tapering nose cone. It’s propelled by a powerful tail. Its solid body is packed with muscle like a sea-going super hero.
Body
The body isn’t round or barrel shaped but long and laterally compressed. It almost resembles the shape of a Russian Wolfhound. It’s the ideal design for slicing through water at high speeds. These fish are not easy to hook. They aren’t stupid or gullible. Sometimes fishermen wait for hours and hours before they get a bite. Patience may not pay but impatience definitely won’t.
Strength
One reason black marlin fishing is popular is because once they are hooked, they are difficult to catch. Even though they don’t usually dive deep, they fight. They can swim a long way in a short time and break a line that isn’t expertly managed in the process. One of the most effective ways to attract a black marlin is with live bait. Unfortunately that is also a good way to attract sharks. More than one unfortunate sport fisher has seen his catch torn to pieces by sharks before he could get it into the boat. It’s a lot like [Black marlin fishing].
Challenging
Even without interference from sharks, it’s no easy task to get a full-grown black marlin into a boat. A mature male can weigh three or four hundred pounds. But he would be the runt of the litter.
Female Marlins
Female black marlin can tip the scales at over a thousand pounds. Weights of eight or nine hundred pounds are not uncommon. The world record is held by one that weighed over fifteen hundred pounds.
Dangerous
Attempting to capture a grandeur is not a task for the faint of heart. Picture a thousand pound female with a bad attitude coming at you with a bayonet at eighty miles an hour. Fortunately these nautical ladies prefer to play hard-to-catch.
Cost
Unless you happen to live near a marlin habitat, you will have to do some traveling if you want to catch one. They can be found in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans. You have plenty of options if you are planning a black marlin vacation. Africa, South America and Australia are among the many destinations you can choose.
Angling
Unlike other members of the marlin family, the blacks are not primarily deep sea dwellers. Their natural habitat is on the continental shelves or in the relatively shallow waters of warm-water archipelagos. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is one of the most desirable angling destinations.
The record for the largest [Black marlin fishing] catch with a rod and reel was set in 1953 off the coast of Peru. You can also try [blue marlin fishing].
