Jet Ski Blue Pushing 700 lbs. Greg George
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Epic Story here...I'll post more info as Greg and I get all the details written up.
Brief Summary, it took over 6 hours, one Jet Ski and two boats, but Greg George's 612 lb. Blue finally made it to the scale about 50 to 70 lbs. light thanks to one really large Tiger Shark.
It started at just after 10 AM when Greg swung in behind the Bite Me 2 near the grounds and as he came out of the turn a Blue ate his Marlin Magic Tear Drop AP with a single stiff 9/0 stainless 7691 Mustad hook. It buried deep into the middle of the fishes bill and wasn't going to come out. The fish put on a huge display, jumping and greyhounding left to right then reversing it's course, Greg's modified Honda Jet Ski has a rod holder at the back of the seat for the Tiagra 80 W with Custom Melton Stubbie rod and the 100 Lb. Diamond melted off the reel, after about 15 minutes on the surface the fished headed straight down in the process Greg was able to bump the drag up to strike and gain back some line, but when everything came tight it was quite apparent the fish was going for a death dive.
Being as this was Greg's second Marlin he called the Melton Kona store and talked with me and Weston, he estimated the fish at 3-400 lbs, but he didn't know what to do with it going straight down and over half the spool out...I told him he had to stop the fish otherwise it would go down and die. At the time we thought he was using his 50 not the 80 and as Greg push up the drag it began to sink the back of his Ski so he had to go forward to avoid becoming a submarine. At first it worked great and he was able to move the fish back up the water column and improve his angle on the fish. Then the rod jumped a couple of times and the weight of the fish seemed to increase dramatically (we later surmised this is when a pretty good sized Tiger came along and took a couple of large bites out of the Blue, 15 footers are common in this area). The sudden increase in pressure caused his Ski to tombstone and put him in the water. We had Greg on the radio at this moment and all we heard was "I'm in the water"...Then 30 seconds with no answer, then he radioed he was back on the Ski, but had to back off the drag and lost most of his line.
Up until this point he was content to be solo, but after more than 3 hours and almost losing his Ski he needed some help to finish the job. At the same moment Gene Vander Hoek came walking up from the back of the store having overheard the situation, let's go. So Gene fired up the Sea Genie II and me, Gene and Weston Leslie were on our way, Capt. Boyd Decoito jumped on at the fuel dock and away we went. Fortunately Kevin Awa was heading out on his skiff Kuulei Aloha and came across Greg and gave him a hand until we arrived about 20 minutes later.
After a quick rod hand off to the Sea Genie II Captain Boyd jumped in the chair with about 50 yards of line left. Boyd has plenty of experience as a captain dealing with fish that need to be planed up and has been in the chair before, this was going to take a little while and we were pretty sure the fish was dead at this point.
Greg circled on his Jet Ski trying to get the water out of it and decided it would be best if he headed to shore because he wasn't sure why it was taking on water. He eventually got close to shore and got the ski to plane and dry out, he inspected the inside and realized the ski was fine so he blasted back out to the Sea Genie II hoped on and we set his ski adrift with an Ono flag waving.
It took 2 hours and some pretty savvy maneuvering to plane up the fish and it turned into a bit of a race as Greg's Jet Ski seemed to be getting a little too close to shore. We quickly hauled the fish in and were surprised to see it was probably over 600 and closer to 700 with the missing bites that came from a Tiger with a VERY large bite radius...
An exhausted Greg jumped on his Ski and cruise back to the harbor with Sea Genie II cruising behind.
__________________
Tim Robertson
Melton International Tackle
Kona,HI
808-329-0800 store
Tim.Robertson@meltontackle.com
www.coastwidesportsfishing.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Epic Story here...I'll post more info as Greg and I get all the details written up.
Brief Summary, it took over 6 hours, one Jet Ski and two boats, but Greg George's 612 lb. Blue finally made it to the scale about 50 to 70 lbs. light thanks to one really large Tiger Shark.
It started at just after 10 AM when Greg swung in behind the Bite Me 2 near the grounds and as he came out of the turn a Blue ate his Marlin Magic Tear Drop AP with a single stiff 9/0 stainless 7691 Mustad hook. It buried deep into the middle of the fishes bill and wasn't going to come out. The fish put on a huge display, jumping and greyhounding left to right then reversing it's course, Greg's modified Honda Jet Ski has a rod holder at the back of the seat for the Tiagra 80 W with Custom Melton Stubbie rod and the 100 Lb. Diamond melted off the reel, after about 15 minutes on the surface the fished headed straight down in the process Greg was able to bump the drag up to strike and gain back some line, but when everything came tight it was quite apparent the fish was going for a death dive.
Being as this was Greg's second Marlin he called the Melton Kona store and talked with me and Weston, he estimated the fish at 3-400 lbs, but he didn't know what to do with it going straight down and over half the spool out...I told him he had to stop the fish otherwise it would go down and die. At the time we thought he was using his 50 not the 80 and as Greg push up the drag it began to sink the back of his Ski so he had to go forward to avoid becoming a submarine. At first it worked great and he was able to move the fish back up the water column and improve his angle on the fish. Then the rod jumped a couple of times and the weight of the fish seemed to increase dramatically (we later surmised this is when a pretty good sized Tiger came along and took a couple of large bites out of the Blue, 15 footers are common in this area). The sudden increase in pressure caused his Ski to tombstone and put him in the water. We had Greg on the radio at this moment and all we heard was "I'm in the water"...Then 30 seconds with no answer, then he radioed he was back on the Ski, but had to back off the drag and lost most of his line.
Up until this point he was content to be solo, but after more than 3 hours and almost losing his Ski he needed some help to finish the job. At the same moment Gene Vander Hoek came walking up from the back of the store having overheard the situation, let's go. So Gene fired up the Sea Genie II and me, Gene and Weston Leslie were on our way, Capt. Boyd Decoito jumped on at the fuel dock and away we went. Fortunately Kevin Awa was heading out on his skiff Kuulei Aloha and came across Greg and gave him a hand until we arrived about 20 minutes later.
After a quick rod hand off to the Sea Genie II Captain Boyd jumped in the chair with about 50 yards of line left. Boyd has plenty of experience as a captain dealing with fish that need to be planed up and has been in the chair before, this was going to take a little while and we were pretty sure the fish was dead at this point.
Greg circled on his Jet Ski trying to get the water out of it and decided it would be best if he headed to shore because he wasn't sure why it was taking on water. He eventually got close to shore and got the ski to plane and dry out, he inspected the inside and realized the ski was fine so he blasted back out to the Sea Genie II hoped on and we set his ski adrift with an Ono flag waving.
It took 2 hours and some pretty savvy maneuvering to plane up the fish and it turned into a bit of a race as Greg's Jet Ski seemed to be getting a little too close to shore. We quickly hauled the fish in and were surprised to see it was probably over 600 and closer to 700 with the missing bites that came from a Tiger with a VERY large bite radius...
An exhausted Greg jumped on his Ski and cruise back to the harbor with Sea Genie II cruising behind.
__________________
Tim Robertson
Melton International Tackle
Kona,HI
808-329-0800 store
Tim.Robertson@meltontackle.com
www.coastwidesportsfishing.com
