Black Marlin Fishing - An Outing To Remember   by Ben Pate

in Sports / Other Sports    (submitted 2012-01-12)

If you love sport fishing and you can't resist a challenge, Black marlin fishing may be your dream adventure. These magnificent creatures are remarkably good looking in addition to being huge. They are also strong and fast and persistent fighters. Their attractive coloring would look well on an expensive convertible sports car. The dorsal side is not really black. It's a distinctive shade of blue, darker than that of the blue marlin. The lower side is an almost metallic white.

Speed

They may not be as fast as your sports car. But among fish, the black marlin is a serious contender. They have been clocked pulling line off a reel at eighty miles per hour. The design of this fish is space-age aerodynamic. It cuts through the water behind a long spear-shaped nose cone. It gets its thrust from a powerful, distinctively shaped tail.

Body

The body isn't round or barrel shaped but long and laterally compressed. It almost resembles the shape of a Russian Wolfhound. It's the ideal design for slicing through water at high speeds. These fish are not easy to hook. They aren't stupid or gullible. Sometimes fishermen wait for hours and hours before they get a bite. Patience may not pay but impatience definitely won't.

Strength

Black marlin fishing is tricky because just getting one on the line is no guarantee you will take it home. They are fighters. Their muscular high-speed swimming has broken more than one line. There are various ways to attract a black marlin. One of the more effective is the use of live bait. The down side of this method is that it also attracts sharks. It isn't unknown to see a shark tear a thousand-pound fish to bits before it can be hauled into the boat. It's a lot like blue marlin fishing.

Challenging

Even under the best of circumstances, it's a challenge to get one of these monsters into a boat. Although the males rarely weigh four hundred pounds, the females can be much larger. Some of them weigh in at four digits.

Record Breaking Marlin

Female black marlin can tip the scales at over a thousand pounds. Weights of eight or nine hundred pounds are not uncommon. The world record is held by one that weighed over fifteen hundred pounds.

Elusive

Attempting to capture a grandeur is not a task for the faint of heart. Picture a thousand pound female with a bad attitude coming at you with a bayonet at eighty miles an hour. Fortunately these nautical ladies prefer to play hard-to-catch.

Habitat

Fishing for these magnificent sea creatures can be an expensive hobby unless you happen to live in one of the locations where they abound. They make their habitat in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. A trip to Africa, South America, Costa Rica, Mexico, Australia or New Zealand will provide a unique opportunity to catch one of these monster fish.

The blacks tend to prefer life on a continental shelf rather than out in the deep water. They like the shallow water of archipelagos and reefs. The Great Barrier Reef off the Coast of Australia is a favorite destination for marlin seekers.

About the Author

Sport fishers who love Black marlin fishing and who love a challenge are still trying to break the record set in 1953. This magnificent fish can be seen in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It weighed 1560 pounds. You can also try blue marlin fishing.