At 4am on Monday the 5th March 2007, the “My Lady” team consisting of Jannie Nel, Trevor Harvey and I arrived on Mapelane beach for the first day of the Mapelane Billfish Invitational. The weather over the past 4 days had been horrific and the swell was really big. On the first morning of the competition however, the wind had died down but the swell was still big. The weather committee got together and made the call to cancel the competition for the day. Jannie had his brand new 17ft Yeld Cat off the trailer for the first time and was still keen to have a social fishing trip to see how the boat handled. Without much deliberation, we put the boat into the bay and made a few laps to check that everything was working. Jannie saw the gap and we comfortably made it through the sets.
The sea looked good, apart from a large swell that was running. We headed up to the slides, a few km north of St Lucia, where we put out a few small lures to catch livebait. The current was doing about 4 knots and the colour was a deep blue. We trolled for about half an hour when we had a double strike on skipjack tuna. These were quickly brought in and rigged on 20/0 circle hooks. I let out the lines and Jannie headed to deeper water.
The strong current pushed us south at quite a speed and at about 10am we were straight over the launch. While trolling, we found a flock of birds dipping on the surface and headed in that direction. Shortly after seeing the activity, I walked back to check the baits. When I looked into the water, I saw 3 or 4 small skipjack swimming with us, several meters behind the boat. I put out a small lure, but they were not interested. They swam with us for about an hour before we parted company.
The baits had been swimming for a few hours and were starting to take strain in the large swell. We adjusted the direction to troll in the trough to reduce the surge on the bait. This resulted in us trolling deeper. In about 250m, I saw a big blue flash about 10m from the port rigger. I jumped up and saw a marlin following the short bait. The fish had all its colours lit up, but it did not want to take the bait. I pulled the line out the rigger and let the bait further out, thinking the marlin was a bit shy of the boat. This also did not induce a strike. The fish made a big circle and then saw the long bait. It raced over to the bait but did not strike. The fish was obviously interested in the bait but would not take it. It obviously needed to be enticed to feed. I released the line from the rigger and let the dropback come tight off the rod tip. I then wound the bait in at speed hoping that this would tease the fish and it would strike. The marlin chased the bait right to the boat before moving back to the short bait. By now the three of us were out of ideas and were ready to give up! I let out the bait again and the marlin followed it again. When it was about 50 or 60m back, I put the drag up and had Jannie increase the speed of the boat. I wound the bait back to the boat causing it to skip on the surface. I could not see if the marlin was still around, but as the bait came down the swell, we saw the electric blue colours of the marlin closing in fast! I continued winding and lost sight of the bait behind the swell. Suddenly there was a heavy weight on the line and so I hit freespool, assuming the marlin had grabbed the bait. I fed the fish longer than usual as it was very shy, before tightening up. The rod loaded up and the reel started running... Hookup! The fish came flying out the water about 100m behind the boat giving a great show. I called to Jannie to get into the chair and we strapped him in.
Trevor cleared the other line and I took over the controls. Jannie
had never fought a marlin out of a chair, all his marlin were on Scarborough reels, so I coached him until he got the rythme. The fish was very stubborn and took a while to get it to the boat. Trevor and I decided to boat the fish because friends had asked for marlin steaks for starters at the opening of a new restaurant. When the fish was near the boat, I put the autopilot on and took the leader. When the fish way at the boat, Trevor grabbed the bill and put the billrope on. The fish gave him a bit of a hiding before the two of us pulled the 90kg Black Marlin into the boat. Great! The first launch and the first marlin ... Nice. 
By then it was about 12:00 so we headed for the beach.
