James Schwemlein of Washington D.C. fished today with me. James works for the State Department and is involved with our relationship with Afganistan and Pakistan. Little did he know what was in store for him today. The big blue marlin had been on the bite a few days ago but slowed a little yesterday. The past few days we struggled to get a bite from a nice blue but did manage some bites from smaller blues. Today was different. We trolled south of the harbor early in the morning but didn’t get a bite. We heard of a nice porpoise school and ran to it farther offshore. When we arrived we found the porpoise scattered over a 2 mile area so we decided to troll them. We put the lures out and before we could set the last line the long rigger came down with a screaming bite. The fish tore out half the spool, roughly 500 yards. James got in the chair and strapped in for a long fight. About 15 minutes into it James made great progress but he was tiring quickly. Kevin Shiraki was crewing for me today and assisted James in fighting the ahi. After a 30 minute fight on the Fin Nor 80w, they manage to get the ahi to leader. James’s ahi weighed in at an impressive 206lbs! 
We left the school shortly after and joked about hooking a big blue marlin. If James thought fighting a big ahi was hard he would be in shock if a monster blue bit on similar tackle. About 45 minutes later we passed the 1000 fathom line and a small finch flew onto the boat and landed on my steering wheel. This bird had probably flown at least 100 miles over water and was so exhausted it quickly fell asleep. We joked about getting a big bite and scaring it off the boat. 
Minutes later the finch woke up and flew off towards land. As I watched it fly off I saw a big fish grab the short rigger bait. The marlin came screaming out of the water jumping towards the boat. We throttled up trying to keep the line tight but the fish came off. I quickly circled back around hoping to try and raise it again. On our second pass thru the area a big marlin piled on the stinger lure and took of for the horizon. It came up jumping about 300 yards away. 
James strapped himself in and hunkered down for a long fight. We fought the fish for over an hour and finally had it near the boat. The fish was smart and zig-zagged behind the transom not giving us a chance to grab the leader. About 90 minutes into it the fish rolled over and gave up. We got the leader and decided the fish just wasn’t going to survive. When we pulled her thru the transom door she was pretty long but really fat. Our guess was right around 600lbs. When we got back to the dock she weighed 572lbs! James had a great day out on the water and caught two fish of a lifetime – ahi 206lbs and a 572lb blue marlin on his first day saltwater fishing!!!