From left, Aaron Coltrin, Capt. Sal Tarantino and deckman Nick Spurr with their 487.5-pound blue marlin. PHOTO BY DONNELL TATE.

LAHAINA – The Reel Hooker had an early morning bite, hooking into a 487.5-pound blue marlin for Aaron Coltrin. He was fishing with Capt. Sal Tarantino and deckman Nick Spurr.

They were in 60 fathoms of water off Club Lanai as Nick set up the pattern. Nick had just set out the long gone lure, watching it for about a minute, when the line got knocked down out of the rigger but didn’t pull any line.

Nick looked back and saw a big hole on the surface; seconds later, the marlin’s back rolled out of the water as it grabbed the lure and took off. It started greyhounding off to the port side of the boat, clearing the rest of the pattern, as it tail-walked up past the bow.

The marlin settled down after a couple of minutes and then went deep. Nick had the lines cleared as Sal reversed after the loop. Sal backed the boat up to the line in about 15 minutes. The marlin was down and dirty, around 200 yards deep, swimming away from them.

Nick had Aaron clipped into the harness as Sal followed the fish. They chased it for about 40 minutes, slowly gaining line. Once they ran into a stalemate, the 60-test line started to slowly peel off the spool.

At that point, Sal started to treat it like a dead fish and began to plane the marlin upward. Sal idled the boat forward as Aaron worked it to double line.

They noticed that the bird teaser was wrapped up and under the marlin’s peck fin. They were thinking it was foul hooked.

They just had the double out of the water when it pulled off 30-40-feet.

It was a give-and-take tug of war, as they had it up and down from double line at least 6-8 times over the next 30 minutes. When they finally got it to deep color, Sal was thinking it would come up dead. Nick looked down and saw the marlin turn, unwrapping itself from the leader, and continue swimming with the boat.

After a couple of more give-and-takes, they finally had several wraps of double line on the spool. Nick grabbed the line and started pinching and pulling it. Once Aaron had all the double line on the spool, Nick was able to grab the leader on the starboard side.

Sal had the boat one engine idle ahead. Once at leader, the marlin didn’t put up any resistance. Nick took a couple of wraps and pulled it right up.

The marlin was barely hooked. It was just hitched around the bill by the hook rig, with the hook tip caught back on top of the bill, keeping it from unwrapping. It was a real lucky catch, mentioned Nick, while also being an 8:1 ratio fish on 60-test line.