From right to left, Diane Gates, Deckman Derek Escalera, Tannah Zub, Captain Bob Schnoor and Renee Fletcher with their 256.6-pound marlin. PHOTO BY DONNELL TATE.

LAHAINA — The TroubleMaker landed a nice 256.6-pound blue marlin for Tannah Zub, taking second place during the Maalaea Spring Wahine Tournament. She was fishing with Captain Bob Schnoor, Deckman Derek Escalera and teammates Dianne Gates and Renee Fletcher.

They started out at the K-Buoy, off the southwest corner of Lanai, catching a small mahi mahi. They tried to catch some aku for bait, but the sharks were working the buoy area. Bob decided to leave the buoy and headed down the backside of Lanai to the MN-Buoy off Kaumalapau.

The second pass by the buoy, they picked up a 17.1-pound mahi mahi. Bob decided to try and pick up some aku. They got double aku, with Derek putting both out. One died, so Derek set it up to “skip” on the surface, on the third wave, with the long gone bait up in the rigger clip.

The long bait came out of the clip with no action, so Derek went to check the clip tension and put it back up in the rigger. Bob had the boat in autopilot and was on the deck checking the drag. He had his hand on the reel when the long bait came down again.

The 130-class line started screaming off the spool 100 MPH. Bob waited a few seconds before he set the hook. Once hooked up, Tannah sat on the port side gunnel as Bob went back to the helm and slowed the boat down.

The marlin immediately started jumping and tail-walking all across the surface, putting on a great show, as it pulled off 300-plus yards. It never really settled down as it stayed on the surface for the first 25 minutes.

As Bob slowly reversed after the fish, it was give and take for Tannah. The marlin would run out 50 yards, with Bob chasing after it to regain line.

After a few runs, the marlin finally settled down, with Tannah getting into a stalemate for about ten minutes.

Even with 35 pounds of drag pressure, the marlin continued to make short runs. It didn’t want to come in. Bob watched the angle on the line as Derek kept an eye on Tannah, to make sure there was no slack in the line during the give and take fight.

They kept up the back and forth battle with the fish at least a half-dozen times before the marlin went down, and they ran into another stalemate 30 minutes into the fight. Derek showed Tannah how to put the reel into low gear to help her crank.

With the marlin still fairly deep, for the next half-hour, Tannah put on a glove and started to pull and crank in the line, just trying to get a foot or two back on the spool, as it slowly came up. Bob kept the boat idle ahead to keep an angle on the fish. Near the end of the fight, Tannah was just about to give up when Derek shouted out, “Leader!”

She got a second wind and continued to grind on the reel, gaining the last bit of line as the marlin got close to the surface.

Bob went to the deck and had Renee go to the helm to keep the boat going straight and work the throttles as he coached her. At leader, the marlin was swimming straight for the stern. Renee put the boat idle ahead.

Bob was a little worried that the fish might go under the boat, so Derek leaned over the swim step and guided the leader around the starboard corner and up the side of the boat. Bob quickly stuck a big mahi gaff into the fish to pull it to the boat.

Diane held the mahi gaff as Bob followed up with a fly-gaff to secure their catch. Derek grabbed the bill, with everybody hauling the marlin over the rail.

This was Tannah’s first time fishing. “Luckily, it was a very cooperative fish at leader,” mentioned Derek.