Just about every time we let a marlin go in one of our Marlin University sessions, one of the students inevitably asks me how we can tell the different marlin species apart from each another. It's a fair question for most folks who haven't seen a whole bunch of billfish, but even veteran captains and mates get it wrong from time to time - until the fish comes close to the boat. There are plenty of subtle differences between species, but during the excitement of the bite and spray flying all around a jumping fish, you can be fooled quite easily.
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