In most years, the entire Kona fleet only catches one or two granders, which usually makes the tale of a thousand-pound fish one of the biggest fishing stories of the year. But how about two monsters on the same day, right next to each other?
It began when Capt. Jerry Allen of the Sea Dancer took angler Ramon Flores out to catch a marlin. "I was looking at the short corner bait, a big Black Bart lure, when she charged in big time. I knew it was a big fish, at least 500 pounds, but we wouldn't really appreciate the size until much later," recalled Capt. Allen.
The fish continued screaming line off until they were deep into the last 100 yards on the spool. All the while Allen was expecting to hear the 80-pound test line pop. Just before the fish emptied the spool, however, Allen's aggressive attack with the boat worked and the fish finally slowed down.
From then on, the fight was "fairly uneventful," says Allen. Except, that is, for one scare when the fish was fighting deep and steady and the rod tip snapped up with a jerk that usually signals a break off. The hooks slipped but apparently grabbed a new hold -- temporarily.
Flores managed to bring the fish back to the surface where the fish rolled over on its back, dead and the hooks again slipped free.
It wasn't until the hoist lifted the fish out of the water that Allen really began to appreciate its size - 1.021 pounds. "If it had stayed healthy, we'd have put a tag in it and called it 800 pounds," Allen said. "It took me 14 years to catch a grander. I hope it doesn't take another 14 until it happens again." The next one he is tagging for sure.
Just two miles away aboard the Marlin Grando, Capt. Dan Gibbons was fishing a very nervous live bait off Keauhou. The frightened skipjack kept pulling the line out of the clip, a sure sign that some big predator was nearby. It happened each of the three times Gibbons towed the bait up on the 300-fathom ledge, so he marked the spot on his GPS.
On the way home, Gibbons dumped his bait and opted to troll lures. "I made a pass over the same waypoint and the short corner Joe Yee Plunger exploded," said Gibbons. The fish went through most of the spread before it finally got hooked on the long rigger lure, a Marlin Magic medium "pear."
In an hour, we got all the line back and had the fish within 40 to 50 feet straight down," Gibbons said. "There it stayed for the next eight hours." The angler was out of gas after 3-1/2 hours, and a few white-tip sharks began to show up. Capt. Brian Wargo on the Bite Me helped get the sharks off and then dropped off his angler, Robert Lynn, along with Capt. Nate Cary. With Wargo taking over they continued for another 3-1/2 hours. "I came down on the deck while Nate maneuvered the boat, and that was the first time I saw what we were fighting. It was by far the largest fish I have ever had behind my boat. I couldn't even get a foot of line by hand-lining it," Gibbons said. When the second angler wore out, Cary happily jumped in. Kevin Nakamaru and Randy Llanes came out on the Northern Lights with more help at about 8 p.m, but 20 minutes later the line broke at the reel, cutting Llanes' shoulder in the process.
"My largest fish are an 862-pound black and an 824-pound blue, but they don't come close to this fish," says Gibbons. So how big was it? Some who saw the fish aren't afraid to guess its weight at 1,400 pounds.
