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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.
Fast Fish
Blacks are very fast. They have been clocked at over eighty miles an hour. That’s how fast they can unwind your line off your reel once you have hooked one. This fish has a streamlined design. The upper jaw tapers out into a long sharp point like the nose cone of a rocket. They are powered by an incredibly strong crescent-shaped tail.
Body Build
The body is nearly flat on the sides. It bears a slight resemblance to the shape of a dog designed for high-speed chase such as a Borzoi or a Greyhound. Black marlin that have been tagged have been known to travel thousands of miles in remarkably short times. Blacks are not easy fish to catch. They seem to have a lot of sales resistance. Experienced sport fishers tell of spending long hours waiting for the first nibble.
Strength
Once they have taken the bait, the fight is only beginning. With black marlin fishing, they don’t surrender easily. And their high-speed swimming has broken more than one line. Black marlins like live bait. Unfortunately so do sharks. Sharks can rip a marlin to pieces before its captors can haul it into the boat. It’s a lot like blue marlin fishing.
Challenging
Even without interference from sharks, it’s no easy task to get a full-grown black marlin into a boat. A mature male can weigh three or four hundred pounds. But he would be the runt of the litter.
Female Species
Female black marlin are much larger than the males. They can weigh over a thousand pounds. The world record holder was over fifteen hundred pounds.
Elusive
If you don’t think these fish are tough, use some imagination. Imagine a thousand pound female coming at you at 80 miles an hour with PMS and a bayonet. Lucky for you, they are more inclined to play hard-to-get.
Location
Unless you happen to live near a marlin habitat, you will have to do some traveling if you want to catch one. They can be found in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans. You have plenty of options if you are planning a black marlin vacation. Africa, South America and Australia are among the many destinations you can choose.
Breeding Ground
Unlike other members of the marlin family, the blacks are not primarily deep sea dwellers. Their natural habitat is on the continental shelves or in the relatively shallow waters of warm-water archipelagos. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is one of the most desirable angling destinations.
