February 15, 2013 – Jim and Nancy’s 456lb Blue!

Today, Jim and Nancy of Kansas joined me for a full day on the Lepika.  The weather was a little unstable and we had some wind out of the north but since the bite has been near the airport we headed into the wind.  We took a few waves over the bow and we were definitely “not in Kansas” anymore!  Jim and Nancy did great and they hung in there threw the rough weather.  We fished a nice pod of porpoise without a bite for most of the day.  It was a lot of rocking and rolling and they were getting tired so we started back.  The water had calmed as we passed just south of the airport on the 500 fathom line.  My good friend Keith was deckhanding for me.  He was sitting on the flybridge next to me when a big blue marlin exploded from outside the wake on the long corner bait!  The big blue came up jumping inside the spread going straight away and dumping a lot of line in a hurry.  The marlin headed straight away as Jim got harnessed into the fighting chair.  I started backing down hard on the fish trying to make it easy for Jim to gain line.  He was shaking in the chair, fulll of excitement and awe.  He had half a spool to bring in still…over 500 yards.  Slowly but surely we gained on the fish.  We put the Fin Nor 130 in low gear and he steadily gained line.  After 35 minutes we finally got the fish to leader!  Unfortunately, she was hooked in the eye and we decided to take her instead of feed the sharks.  Jim’s first blue marlin would scale out at 456lbs!