×
×
homepage logo

Start Me Up Das finds monter marlin near Kaho‘olawe Shoals

By Staff | Feb 11, 2010

From left, Dwayne Raczynski, Rich Lynch and Capt. Randy Evans with their 688.1-pound marlin caught on Start Me Up Das It.

LAHAINA — The Start Me Up Das It did it again, landing another monster blue marlin. This one weighed 688.1 pounds by Dwayne Raczynski. He was fishing with Capt. Randy Evans and crewman Rich Lynch.

Randy was working the bait on the up-current side of the SO-Buoy off the west corner of the Kaho‘olawe Shoals. He made several passes through the bait, and as he circled back around through the bait, they had a strike on the short corner position.

The marlin grabbed the lure, turned, and started jumping straight away from the boat. It made several full body jumps, giving Rich a good view of its wide shoulders and high dorsal fin. It headed out about 150 yards, then went down.

Rich started clearing lines as Dwayne got in the chair. By the time Rich got the short side cleared and the long gone out of the water, the marlin reappeared around 150 yards off the starboard side jumping back toward the boat. The long rigger was still out as Randy began backing after the big loop in the line.

Randy let the long rigger go up the side of the boat as Dwayne started regaining line. The marlin went up and around the buoy, so Randy followed the line after it. As the fish went by the buoy, they had gotten the line straight behind the boat. Fortunately, the marlin turned away from the buoy, passing within 30 yards of it.

They chased after the fish for a solid 25 minutes, covering about one-and-a-half miles. Dwayne had all but about 100 yards of the 130-test line back before the marlin made another run — 300 yards straight down — and then stopped.

Dwayne worked on the marlin but ran into a bit of a stalemate. Rich pushed up the drag, but the fish was still slowly peeling off line. Randy had Rich grab the line to see if he could feel the fish. After a few minutes, they figured the marlin was dead and decided to hand-line it up.

Randy went to the deck, and he and Rich began to double-team the marlin. Rich leaned over and had his chest on the rail as he hand-over-hand pulled up line. Randy stood behind him, lifting the line to the rod tip as Dwayne packed the spool. They switched off three to four times, every five minutes, over the next 20 minutes.

Halfway through the tag-team hand-lining, Randy put the reel into low gear as Rich took over pulling by himself. Dwayne was doing most of the lifting himself at this point, keeping a big bend in the rod.

 About 20 feet before double line, the marlin started to float up on them. Randy idled the boat ahead as Dwayne cranked the swivel to the rod tip. The line went slack for a split second before Rich could grab the leader.                                           

The marlin came up bill first right behind the boat, just ten feet away, heading for the stern. It was pretty much dead as Randy got a securing gaff into the fish to end the 50-minute fight.

Start Me Up Sportfishing gave Dwayne his trip for free for catching a marlin over 500 pounds. They also donated $300 to the Malama Family Recovery Center as part of their continuing charity donation for a marlin caught over 500 pounds on one of their boats.