spread — one I had never used before
— a red, black and purple Marlin Magic
by Marlin Parker, known as the Ruckus.
Claude Boardman on My Sonhad
just gone past us travelling in a south to
north direction and he had hooked up a
fish about 400m away from us. I decid-
ed to try a similar line and travel from
south to north, heading towards Leven
Point, fishing slightly deeper on the
300m mark. Not even five minutes later
we had a hook up.
Steve was in the chair, and after a
40-minute fight we successfully
released a blue marlin of about 400
pounds. Once again the fish had taken
the red and black Stripey Tickler with a
bird in front of it on the Japan. All was
going according to plan. We had
released this fish by 7.30am and still
had the whole day to fish. During the
fight Steve retrieved the line like a pyra-
mid so we had to sort that.
We set out two short lures and pro-
ceeded to let out the Stripey Tickler
400m behind the bird in order to
retrieve the line evenly. I told the boys
that we’d made a small mistake by let-
ting out a lure that far, and hoped that
we would not get a strike out there!
My instructions to Steve were to wind
the line back as quickly as possible.
While Steve was doing that, my eyes
were fixed on the red, purple and black
Ruckus which was smoking five metres
away on the starboard short. Two min-
utes later I saw a massive marlin come
up and swallow the Ruckus. We still
had 200 metres of line out on the bird!
The marlin took off and wrapped the
line twice around itself; there was pan-
demonium!
The fish come out of the water
numerous times and we were in awe at
the size of this beast. I quickly grabbed
the rod that was 200 metres out and
managed to untangle it while the beast
was jumping 300 metres away
from the boat. We finally
cleared the deck and Bully
jumped into the chair... the
fight was on!
During the fight we
thought we had lost the fish
twice, because there were
times when it swam towards
the boat at such speed that my twin
140hp motors could not get away from
it. Then all of a sudden the fish would
turn, take up the tension and the fight
was back on.
Two hours into the fight the marlin
jumped out the water about 20 metres
from the boat. That was
the first time we got a
really close look at the
size of the fish. As the
skipper and the leader
man I was terrified
because of its size; I
had never before lead-
ered such a massive
fish and politely asked
Bully to keep on fight-
ing.
I went and sat
behind the wheel
and gave myself a
pep talk about how I
was going to leader
this fish. Twenty
more minutes had
passed and the fish
was eight metres
below the boat; the
leader was within
reach. Very con-
cerned, I made my
way to the back of
the boat and
grabbed the
leader.
On my first
attempt at grab-
bing the leaderthe fish pulled away with ease. I let go
and a few seconds later I managed to
grab the leader again. I told myself it
was now or never, and I put everything
into pulling up the fish. This time she
popped up to the surface. We were all
amazed at the sheer size of the fish.
I shouted out, “It must be a
grander!” Then I told myself, “Calm
down now, you are really over excited.”
We finally got the subdued fish
alongside the boat. After the long fight
she was tired and lay there motionless
which gave us a great opportunity to
measure her properly. We just used the
rope that we had on the boat to mea-
sure her, tying knots at all the measure-
ments; we did that three times just to
make sure we had all the measurements
correct.
After checking all the measurements
we successfully released the fish. We
radioed beach control and let them
know we had released a massive marlin
which we had estimated to be
around 800-900 lb. The radio
was alive because of such a big
call, and a lot of questions were
being asked. We continued
fishing, not realising the exact
size of the fish.
Even though all went
according to plan, we still
ended up second as Kelly’s Eyereleased
two fish on the same day. At 2pm it was
lines up and the end of our competi-
tion.
When we got to the wash bay
Claude Boardman produced a fancy
tape measure which gave you estimated
weights of a fish according to the
length and girth. Claude held one end
of the rope as I started to walk back
with the rope and tape measure in
hand. It went past the 600-, 700- and
800 lb marks with ease and there was
still a fair amount of rope in my hand. I
went past the 900- and then the 1000 lb
mark.
There was a lot of excitement, but
Claude put a damper on that by saying
that not only was the length important,
but also the girth. The length of the fish
was 148 inches — seven inches longer
than what a grander would be.
However, in order for it to truly be a
grander the girth had to be bigger than
74 inches. With great anticipation we
measured the girth and it was a stagger-
ing 82 inches! We had one more mea-
surement — the tail. The tail had to be
over 20 inches and our fish’s tail mea-
sured 24 inches — a definite grander!
According to the international cal-
culations a fish of those measurements
would weigh 1 245 lb. What a fish!
Was it one of the biggest blue marlin
ever caught in Africa? Was it the biggest
to be caught in 2017 so far? We could-
n’t be 100% sure, but according to the
measurements it undoubtedly was a
monster. What a privilege.54 • SKI-BOAT May/June 2017
IN BRIEF
Boat: Eye-Tie
Skipper: Roberto Fierro
Angler: Bully de Ricquebourg
Crew: Steve de Ricquebourg
Fish’s weight: ±1 245 pounds
Length: 148 inches
Girth: 82 inches
Tail: 24 inches
Lure: Purple, red and black Marlin
Magic Ruckus by Marlin Parker
Depth: 300m of water
Place: Cape Vidal South Africa
Spot: Deep Vegetation
Duration of fight: 2 hours
Tackle: 80 lb Shimano rod and reel