Blue Marlin
Maybe one in ten marlin we hook on the Hannibal Bank with live bait, will be a Blue Marlin. The difference is often apparent immediately. Blues are faster and go really berserk when hooked up. Blacks are more heavy weight type fighters, Blacks jump sort of heavy and slower when compared to Blues. A blue can scream line off faster than you can believe and just go an insane. A big blue can put so drag on the line out there, faster than we might react to it. You need to back the drag off lower and smoothly as a blue marlin makes its super high speed initial run.
The only way you can tell for sure if a live marlin is blue or black is the pectoral fin. If the fin can fold in, it’s a blue. If the pec fin stays rigid and will not fold, it’s a black. When a blue is jumping you can often see the folded fin.
Blues come and go here, any time of the year, while blacks are here all the time. When we hook a Blue Marlin I expect to see another, they seem to come and go in groups. If we hook a blue while live baiting for blacks or tuna, I’m more inclined to spend some time pulling marlin lures around the edge of the banks or down the 100 or 500 fathom lines off and around Isla Jicarita. Blues seem more likely to take a trolled lure than blacks. Maybe it’s because of where we fish them. Blues seem to prefer the edges of deep water, while Blacks will more often be hooked in 300 foot deep water. When out in the open ocean I only live bait around bait, otherwise we are pulling lures. I think my boat attracts blues, because I’ve seen them several times over the years, swimming right behind the boat, where we have to reel a lure up close to make him see it. You can tease a blue to stay behind the boat better than you can make a black stay.
When skipjack tuna are abundant here, which can be anytime of year, we catch more Blue Marlin. A semi stationary school of skipjack out in deep water off the banks is a great spot to live bait a Blue Marlin. We’ve caught a lot of blue marlin inside feeding schools of yellowfin tuna.
My number one Blue Marlin lure right now is a Kona Killa with evil skirt. Number two is a Pakula Rat also in evil skirt. It’s more often a brighter colored lure that gets a blue and darker colors that bring in the blacks. Number one black marlin lure for me is a 8” black on black Mold Craft Hooker. Number two best black lure on my boat is the Zuker ZM5.5 Mean Joe Green after that my Zucker ZM 5.5 Petrolio.
While Black Marlin are what bring most of my guests here and of course I love a Black Marlin behind the boat, my top most favorite fish, is a Blue Marlin.
With Panama’s new laws that now exclude tuna seiners and long-liners from our waters, I bet our great marlin fishing is only going to get better and better.