LAHAINA — The Reel Hooker weighed a nice blue marlin, coming in at 469.4 pounds by Kyle Savage. He was fishing with Captains Roy Kummer and Joel Cota.

They were on an afternoon four-hour charter, with Roy running out to a couple of “projects” off the northwest side of Kahoolawe. With no action, after the full-day boats had worked the area, Roy headed back toward Maui.

Roy was at the 100-fathom tip of the LA area finger marks when they had a blind strike on the short rigger lure. The marlin came peck fins out of the water, shaking its bill like a windshield wiper, as it pushed a wake down the pattern.

After about ten yards, it climbed out of the water and started tail-walking and putting on a great show as it crisscrossed back and forth just outside the pattern, as it headed off to the starboard side.

Joel started clearing lines. Once he got the two corner rods cleared, he handed the rod to Kyle. The first run was pretty impressive, mentioned Joel. It took three-quarters of the spool of 130-test line way into the Dacron backing before it stopped 500 yards later.

Once the marlin settled down, Joel had the rest of the lines cleared. Roy reversed the boat aggressively after the fish. It stayed on the surface, allowing them to back down quickly, regain all of the Dacron and get the main line back on the spool.

The marlin went down on a quick 100-yard dive but came back up to the thermocline layer and settled in. Roy stayed after the fish, keeping a good angle on the line.

In about 20 minutes, they were up on the fish, with it 100 feet deep. Roy slowly planed the fish as Kyle worked the rod. The marlin came in a little quicker than they expected, with Joel seeing deep color right there.

As the double line came up, the marlin turned toward the boat. Roy had to bump the boat ahead a couple of times to keep the line tight. This made it easy for Joel to walk the fish toward the port side.

As Joel grabbed the leader, he took a wrap. The marlin came across underneath the corner, with him pushing out the leader off the corner and holding on to the wrap. As it popped up right off the stern, Roy was there to secure their catch.