Captain Jay Rifkin (left) and Deckman Sam Thies with their 418.4-pound marlin caught on Die Hard 2. PHOTO BY DONNELL TATE.

LAHAINA – The Die Hard 2, with Capt. Jay Rifkin and Deckman Sam Thies, made the Top Marlin stats with a blue weighing 418.4 pounds.

The weather was pretty sloppy, so they decided to bottom fish off the Palaoa Point Lighthouse, Lanai. Seeing little action, they headed out to the K-Buoy located five miles southwest of the light.

They had a bunch of opelu ready as they pulled up to the buoy. Sam waited for Jay to slow the boat before he started to clear the lures and got ready to bait the buoy.

Jay had them at dead boat as Sam cranked in the short corner lure. Jay came down and started to clear the long corner. Sam saw the long rigger line move and thought they might have hooked a mahi. He shouted, “We got something here!”

Sam watched the line on the rigger come tight, so he took a crank on the reel as the rubber band broke. The reel started to scream out the 130-test line with a Steve Elkins Jr. Popsicle lure on the other end. Sam hollered, “We’re on, we’re on; we’re bit, we’re bit!”

Sam got the first angler into the chair. They only lasted a couple of minutes. Before Sam could get the rest of the lures cleared, the first angler couldn’t hold the rod any longer. Sam got them out of the chair and got a second angler to take their place.

Jay started to reverse the boat after the fish as Sam got the rest of the lines out of the water, before the second angler gave up the fight. Even with the reel in low gear, they still couldn’t get a crank.

Jay had a good angle on the marlin as Sam got a third angler into the chair. This angler couldn’t do any better, with Sam starting to hand-line the fish. He shouted, “This thing’s still alive!” As the line started coming up, Sam called out, “It’s coming up. It’s coming up.”

Sam let the line go as the marlin jumped a couple of times about 600 yards away and then disappeared. They never saw it again.

The marlin went down, taking almost the entire spool with it. Sam pushed up the drag as far as it would go, finally stopping the fish with maybe ten wraps left on the spool.

Jay stayed after the marlin as Sam continued to hand-over-hand pull up the fish, as the third angler just cranked in the line. They got up on top of the fish in about 45 minutes, with it straight up and down off the stern.

The last twenty minutes, Jay idle reversed on the marlin, maneuvering on it to change the angle. With Sam feeling little movement from the fish, they thought it might be dead. Jay tried to plane it up a couple of times in the sloppy water. Sam slid from corner to corner hand-lining the fish as he got tossed across the deck in the nasty swell.

Jay pivoted the boat around on the fish to the port side and then to starboard several times trying to plane it up. Sam was able to gain about 100 yards in a short time with that maneuver.

After over an hour hand-lining the marlin, Sam finally saw color as it came to double line. As it got a little closer to leader, Sam told Jay to idle the boat ahead. The marlin pulled a little line off the spool as it planed itself up, coming in backward and dead. Once secured, that was it.