DOUBLE HEADER MARLIN FOR CHRISSIE & JOHN JACKSON
by Captain Duarte Rato on Bazaruto Island
Over the last 6 days we had Chrissie and John Jackson from the States and despite a slow Marlin bite we had great fun and some good fishing. The first day four days were great fun and we raised a number of Marlin, one estimated very close to a 1000 pounds. We released one about 150 lbs, a sailfish and got a good number of game fish including dorado, wahoo, yellowfin tuna, skipjack, bonito, great barracuda and queen mackerel.
Our 5th day started up north at lighthouse and we had not set the spread for more than 15 minutes when both, the left short and long go simultaneously. What a sight as the two Marlin jumped in together in our wake and what pandemonium as we tried to clear the deck and make sure the lines did not cross over. After that initial chaos we had everything under control and we decided to deal with the smallest fish first which John was fighting stand up. We made short work of it and soon we had the 150 pounder by the boat, tagged it and let it go. Now it was time to deal with the bigger fish which Chrissie was fighting from the fighting chair. The fish was deep but as soon as we got on top of it and applied some more heat it come up and gave us an absolute fantastic jumping display in the beautiful morning light. We got it close to the boat but it was a hard fish and with 40 pounds of drag (as much as Chrissie wanted to go) it still took us another 10 minutes to get it under control by the side of the bat for some photos. We eventually let it go and called it 400 pounds. What a start to the day!!!
