703-pound marlin at Lone Star Shootout

By Robert Sloan

For Lone Star outdoor newS

It was boiling hot at the Lone Star Shoot out weigh-in July 22, but hundreds of folks were on hand to see what the big sportfish ing boats had caught during a tournament put on by the Houston Big Game Fishing Club.

But when the crew aboard Desperado backed into the Fishing Center slip to weigh in what they had caught, the crowd fell quiet.

The El Patron boat had just weighed a blue marlin at 447 pounds. The crowd liked what they saw, but what the Despera do crew had iced down in the cockpit blew everyone away.

It took 10 grown men to move the huge marlin out of the ice bag and to the stern so the weigh-in winch could be looped around the forked tail. When the scales settled, the marlin weighed a whopping 703 pounds.

The crowd went wild, and this fish would go on to win the tournament, one of the most popular along the Texas coast.

Capt. Andy Hallen was at the helm of the winning boat, a 55-foot Viking sport fisher, which elected to bump-troll big live baits. At this tourney, yellowfin tuna was the most effective live bait choice among anglers.

“It’s tough to beat a live bait when you are after big marlin,” Hallen said. “We used Sabiki jigs to catch most of our live bait. Lures will work, but if you are after the big ones, live bait can’t be beat.”

Instead of using a regular bridle rig, the team opted to use a Bridle-Buddy that reduces stress on the baits. It locks into place on the roof of the bait’s mouth. Once the bait was rigged and ready to go, they tossed it in off the stern and bumpedtrolled at 3.5-5 knots. The reels were set with 18-pound test drags. But after hooking the fish, they bumped the drag up to 35 pounds.

“This big marlin swallowed the 6-pound yellowfin tuna whole,” Hallen said. “After about 15 seconds, the angler, Dane Braun, set the hook and it took two and a half hours to get her to the boat. The wire man was Ryan Doxey, he really did a great job at wearing the marlin out.”

They spent the entire tournament at the Diana, a floater rig about 130 miles offshore, bump-trolling in about 4,000 feet of water. They caught one other marlin weighing about 350 pounds and lost a third one.

The three heaviest marlin brought in at this tournament weighed 703, 576.5 and 447.5 pounds. The top four yellowfin tuna weighed 67, 55, 50.5 and 47.5 pounds.