Dominical Big Fish Story

It was a brilliant morning – 8:00 a.m., January 4, 2010. The six of us had Tuna and Dorado on our minds: captain Steven 1st mate Matt Haley; avid fishermen Mark and Kathy Wilkins from California; and their hosts, complete novices Jerry and Tisha Judson of Lagunas, once again embarking into virgin territory.

As we headed out into open waters in a 24-foot center console boat, Matt queried each of us, asking about our experience and making us feel right at home. We were certain we would head back to port in Sierpe by mid-afternoon, packed to the rails with fish.

As we exited the mouth of the Sierpe, Matt and Steven had 4 poles set up as we trolled into deeper waters. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! – 4 Tuna were hooked giving us each an opportunity to show our stuff – or not. Matt flew from one to the other, offering advice, getting the 8-10 pounders into the cooler, then setting the lines once again, and finally giving a quick lesson on gutting a fish. We soon had 2 more tuna, a rainbow runner, and a small Bonita for bait. We began to think we would be doing nothing else for the next 6 hours but reeling in fish after fish.

Then dead calm for 3-½ hours.

We decided to follow and head off a school of Dolphin to hook a really big Tuna or Dorado. using as bait an 8” Bonita we caught earlier. On the second attempt, we had hooked something, but Matt and Steven knew it was not a tuna or Dorado from the way she ran out the line. Seconds later Matt yelled, “She’s gonna jump” and then she breached – a magnificent 800-900 lb. Black Marlin. It was 1:25 p.m. and Tisha was up. Heh-heh – little did she know – the novice was taking on the goddess of the ocean.

The fairy tale lasted about 30 minutes when reality hit. The boat was ill-suited to handling a fish of this size. But, with the ingenuity of the Matt, Steven, and Kathy, we managed to get past the reel handle, and bench gimble we (actually the fish) broke, and the absence of a fighting chair. We resorted to a chest harness and waist gimble neatly strapped onto Tisha, with Jerry pulling from the rear. Meanwhile, Matt was at Tisha’s side, assisting with leverage on the pole and a much needed primer on fishing.

Repeatedly Tisha would reel the fish in, and each time we all thought we had her at last. We had her within 15’ of the boat 5 times, only to hear the increasingly familiar sound of hundreds of feet of line being drawn out. She leaped 12 times, completely clearing the water each time, possibly to remind us of her immense beauty and power. Matt repeatedly offered encouragement, urging us all on.

Sunset came and went.

At 6:10 p.m., after almost 5 hours of combat, and clearly too weak to continue reeling and pulling, Tisha handed the pole over to Mark who was all too anxious to bring her in. Three hours after the swap, at 9:25 p.m., we brought the fish again to the boat with the brute strength of Matt and Steven hauling in the line by hand as Mark reeled. Still the fish fought, slashing at the hull of the boat again and again with her bill. When we released her to resume her regal stature, we estimated her length at about 11’-12’ from the base of the bill to the tail, about 7’ in circumference, and with a probable weight of about 880 lbs.

At 9:30, everyone was thoroughly drained but we still needed to get back to port. We were eight miles from the mouth of the Sierpe before she drug us another 12 miles, so we had a lot of distance to cover. Steven expertly maneuvered us back through the mouth of the Sierpe without the aid of moon or stars and we arrived at the dock at midnight – without a single Dorado!

Was it luck? Possibly, but we were sure glad we had Matt and Steven guiding us though our adventure. And we have pictures to back us up!