My life is awesome.
Friday night after the English speech contest (both my students made me proud) I had to find my way to the upper part of the Okinawan mainland for the opening party of the fishing tournament. My plan to take a bus and then a taxi was altered when I called a girl on the team and she rerouted me to the end of the monorail line to meet up with another teammate who had just deboarded a flight from Tokyo. We reached the party just in time for it to end, but fortunately our teammates saved us some plates. While we were eating our boat captain made a bold decision regarding Saturday’s terrible weather forecast (30+mph winds): we would travel back to Zamami that night.
A half-hour later, at 10pm, we took off away from the lights of Naha and into the darkness toward the Keramas. We arrived at midnight and went to sleep, waking up Saturday morning to huge winds pounding our southerly windows. I went back to sleep. At 2pm, after checking in multiple times, I got word we were going to give it a try. We fished all afternoon in pretty big waves and discovered later after checking the lures and lines that we’d had a hit (the lure’s skirting was damaged and the line was roughed up by the marlin’s bill).
Sunday morning I woke up at 3:30am to be ready for our 4:30am departure. We reached our fishing point at 5:15am and dropped the lines well before sunrise.
The lures we use are huge and expensive ($50+ each). They are 12-14” long and have two big hooks secured by cable that is attached to 200lb. test monofilament leader. The leader is about 10m long and is then attached to the main line, which is 110lb. test monofilament. The reels take 800-1200m of line and cost $600-1200/apiece. The rods are a few hundred dollars each. We ran six rods. Three of them went straight off the back. One went off each side and those lines ran out poles that extended 30’ off each side. The last line went straight up off a vertical pole that hung it behind the rest while trolling. Every lure was led by an orange ‘bird’ that bounced frantically on the surface to attract attention from below.
Friday night after the English speech contest (both my students made me proud) I had to find my way to the upper part of the Okinawan mainland for the opening party of the fishing tournament. My plan to take a bus and then a taxi was altered when I called a girl on the team and she rerouted me to the end of the monorail line to meet up with another teammate who had just deboarded a flight from Tokyo. We reached the party just in time for it to end, but fortunately our teammates saved us some plates. While we were eating our boat captain made a bold decision regarding Saturday’s terrible weather forecast (30+mph winds): we would travel back to Zamami that night.
A half-hour later, at 10pm, we took off away from the lights of Naha and into the darkness toward the Keramas. We arrived at midnight and went to sleep, waking up Saturday morning to huge winds pounding our southerly windows. I went back to sleep. At 2pm, after checking in multiple times, I got word we were going to give it a try. We fished all afternoon in pretty big waves and discovered later after checking the lures and lines that we’d had a hit (the lure’s skirting was damaged and the line was roughed up by the marlin’s bill).
Sunday morning I woke up at 3:30am to be ready for our 4:30am departure. We reached our fishing point at 5:15am and dropped the lines well before sunrise.
The lures we use are huge and expensive ($50+ each). They are 12-14” long and have two big hooks secured by cable that is attached to 200lb. test monofilament leader. The leader is about 10m long and is then attached to the main line, which is 110lb. test monofilament. The reels take 800-1200m of line and cost $600-1200/apiece. The rods are a few hundred dollars each. We ran six rods. Three of them went straight off the back. One went off each side and those lines ran out poles that extended 30’ off each side. The last line went straight up off a vertical pole that hung it behind the rest while trolling. Every lure was led by an orange ‘bird’ that bounced frantically on the surface to attract attention from below.
[The lure that caught the marlin isn't shown. Just for the record.]
[The boat. Those long poles swivel out to extend an additional line off each side.]
[Fishing for marlin at sunrise.]At 6am we spotted some sperm whales surfacing in the distance. Not much later we came into some dolphins that stayed around awhile. Just before 8am, chaos struck. The outside port reel struck and started screaming out line. The marlin surfaced not far behind us, throwing his head and jumping. The boat went into gear and we all jumped to our assigned reels to bring in the empty lures and make room for the fight. I put on the harness and attached myself to the reel that was quickly emptying its line. I moved everything to the fighting chair and held on.
The fish took a lot of line – enough that the captain got worried and started backing down on the fish so I could catch up. For the first twenty minutes I tried to gain line but it was a futile give-and-take fight. At the half-hour mark I started gaining. The captain and I also got into a good rhythm of backing down on the fish at a rate that I could keep up with but still avoiding slack. At forty-five minutes I reached the leader. The captain came down and I brought the leader up slowly until he reached out and began handlining the fish in. My job was to keep the line clear in case the fish ran and I needed to take to the reel again. This didn’t happen, but rather they brought the fish up the boat slowly and then speared him (actually they missed twice, making us all pretty nervous). And speared him again. And then stuck him with two flying gaffes (giant hooks that release from their poles but are still attached by a rope). After a few minutes of bleeding we hauled him into the boat through the doors that open off the stern. It took all of the guys pulling on all of the ropes to get the marlin in.
The fish took a lot of line – enough that the captain got worried and started backing down on the fish so I could catch up. For the first twenty minutes I tried to gain line but it was a futile give-and-take fight. At the half-hour mark I started gaining. The captain and I also got into a good rhythm of backing down on the fish at a rate that I could keep up with but still avoiding slack. At forty-five minutes I reached the leader. The captain came down and I brought the leader up slowly until he reached out and began handlining the fish in. My job was to keep the line clear in case the fish ran and I needed to take to the reel again. This didn’t happen, but rather they brought the fish up the boat slowly and then speared him (actually they missed twice, making us all pretty nervous). And speared him again. And then stuck him with two flying gaffes (giant hooks that release from their poles but are still attached by a rope). After a few minutes of bleeding we hauled him into the boat through the doors that open off the stern. It took all of the guys pulling on all of the ropes to get the marlin in.
[The fish is wrapped in a specially designed 'blanket' that is filled with ice to prevent moisture evaporation and subsequent loss of weight. The exposed fish seen in the picture was covered with wet blankets.] Congratulations were in order but we got back to fishing quickly because we still had a day ahead of us. A boring day, it turned out. We only caught two 10kg wahoo before heading back to Zamami mid-afternoon and repacking the marlin with ice. We took off for Naha at 3:30 and made it by 5:30, just before the scales closed. The marlin weighed in at 188kg, which was more than our captain’s estimate of 170kg. 188kg is 414 pounds, 73 pounds heavier than the winning fish I caught during my first marlin tournament in Palau. This one was also a winner. Twenty-seven boats and I caught the winning fish.
I had to attend a conference Monday morning in Naha so I actually stayed behind while our boat went back to Zamami. They cleaned and cut the fish on the boat while traveling back! I spent the night and made the call to my Board of Education Monday morning to get permission to return Tuesday morning so I could attend Monday night’s awards party.
I met up with the captain and two girls from the team that evening and we went to the party, which was really posh (meaning cloth napkins). I ate as much as I could manage and reveled in the fame of being the top angler, but deferred congratulations to the captain as much as I could.
So we won first place overall for everything. That means heaviest fish and most overall weight. Our single fish was so big that it beat out each of the other 27 boats’ entire catches. We won a trophy, a marlin statuette, a plaque, two $300-500 live flower arrangements, two roundtrip plane tickets to Ishigaki (the southernmost major island in Okinawa), $300 of gift certificates to a fancy steakhouse, two custom-made marlin lures, two cases of beer, two cases of tea, expensive glassware, lots of American junk food, and a whole bunch of miscellaneous. Pretty much everything went to us. We had to call another car to help bring the load to Naha.
Three weeks ago I gained a lot of fame by catching a big fish on a kayak. This week I am famous again. I love it. I love my life.
5 comments:
Another spectacular fish story!!
Very cool. Seems fitting. :)
The question is what is he going to do next?
This is a wonderful story. While I don't comment on any regular basis, I was definitely awaiting this update. To say my expectations were exceeded would be a gross understatement. I read the post and showed the pictures to my parents who were also amazed. Congratulations!
WOW! What an incredible story! I can only imagine what it must have been like trying to land that enormous fish. It's a memory of a lifetime ~ I'm so glad you got to experience it!
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