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Hooking Up Anglers Since 2011.
Targeting Blue Marlin in the Southeast Region with Capt. Jimbo Thomas
July and August are two of the better months to target blue marlin in Southeast Florida, mainly because the schoolie mahi’s, blackfin and skipjack tuna and bonito are abundant those months, so the marlin come in to feed from their ranks. We don’t typically target blue marlin very often because they’re so arbitrary, but when we do, we’ll fish in anywhere from 500 feet of water on out.
Blue marlin in my area are always out there, but there’s not really any conditions you can look for. You might see a free-jumper every now and then, but usually the best way to hook and catch and marlin is to fish for them using big baits, which basically eliminates a lot of the smaller species.
Since you’re typically using big baits for blue marlin you want to use 50 pound tackle—you can get away with 30 pound tackle, but you can hook a big fish and not be able to stop it. You can fish rigged baits, but it’s a lot easier to fish lures. When it comes to lures, colors don’t make a big difference, but black and pink or black and red are my favorites. Anytime we’re pulling lures we’ll use 300 pound monofilament leader and a 9/0 to 12/0 hook.
We’ll put out four baits, with the first bait 50 feet back, the second 60 feet, another at 90 feet and another at 100 feet. Don’t be afraid to put a lure close to the boat, because the marlin will come right to the back of the boat and eat it.
When we’re trolling lures, we’re typically trolling at about 8 to 10 knots, and if we’re fishing baits we’re trolling at about 6 knots. If you’re going to fish a bait, fish a horse ballyhoo with a 9/0 hook and a blue and white SeaWitch or Hawiian Eye skirt in front of it. A rigged 1-pound Spanish mackerel is another really good marlin bait.
If you’re trolling along and catch a skipjack tuna or small blackfin tuna or bonito, if you have a rod already rigged with a 10/0 circle hook and a bridle already attached you can bridle one of those baits and put it out behind the boat. Bridle the bait through the nose and slow-troll it.
More often than not you’re going to get a marlin bite in the middle of nowhere. It’s just going to come up in the spread out of the blue, with no rhyme or reason to why it’s there, but every now and then you’ll hook a small dolphin, bonito or tuna and have a marlin come up and eat it, or just swim up into your normal bait spread and eat a bait.
Blue marlin off Southeast Florida average anywhere from about 120 pounds up to 400 pounds, with larger fish hooked every year. You really don’t know what size fish you’re going to hook into, but the majority of them are in that 150 to 300 pound range.
Once you’re offshore, the key is to cover a lot of water and hope to cross paths with a feeding fish. Any time you see active frigate birds, diving gulls or a lot of surface commotion, you want to troll over through that area, as those are good signs for bait or feeding fish in the area, with a chance that a marlin is under them.
When you hook a marlin, it’s going to leave town and there’s nothing you can do about it. You might as well try to stop a Chevy truck driving down the highway. Until the fish tires out, just let it go, but the second it slows down, put the hammer to it and get back as much line as you can.
Every marlin is different. Some are mean and tough, some come to the boat surprisingly easy, but all of them are going to jump, greyhound and make just amazingly fast runs. Whether you catch and release the fish, or just hook it and lose it, when a blue marlin eats the bait and takes off, that is a memory you’ll have with you for the rest of your life.
This Fishing Report was submitted on 7/5/2014 2:45:13 PM by Seamus and last updated on 7/5/2014 2:45:13 PM.
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