Home Forums Fishing Saltwater 958-POUND TOURNAMENT RECORD BLUE MARLIN

Whoa! That is a beast.

How do they eat?

Never eaten one. Haven’t caught many and nothing close to that in size.

You see it on menus in Mexico fairly often. Heard of folks smoking them. Wonder if it’s much different than swordfish?

have heard they are good eating, I've had sailfish and it was good.

just as good as sailfish . just more meat . the prob. is they keep them off the ice to much to get pics.

Marlin is excellent. I don't know if it is like Halibut where the little ones are the best tasting but the Marlin I had was great.

I believe a bigger one was weighed today...1,135 pounds.

Marlin are not prized for their meat, which is coarse. Though I have had some excellent smoked marlin, smoked by an expert. They look a lot like a swordfish, but are not nearly as good eating. I have caught 3 small (~100-120 lbs) striped marlin (one on 20# test line) which got me 4th Place Angler, and giving us 3rd Place Boat in the L.A. Billfish tournament, decades ago.

Yes, weighed in at Sunset Marina Ocean City , MD.
It’ s a Md state record!

https://themidatlantic.com/2021-event-info/2021-standings/

Eat or toss, it seems a shame to kill a fish that reached that scale.

A week or so ago I was reading an article on blue marlin and the growth rates/age at "Grander"size.

Was pretty surprised.

One of the largest sampled, a female of over 1500 pounds, was just 26 years of age. At birth, they are just millimeters in length. Would fit on the tip of your fingers.

I started down the wikihole reading about them when I was looking at dog fish and their age and life cycle. Dog fish, which is particularly sorry form of shark, are much slower growing, mature later, and rarely exceed 4ft. Yet they are ubiquitous "trash fish" here in the PNW.

The volume of prey a blue marlin must consume to grow past 1k pounds in a relatively short period is astounding.

Check out this monster 1431lb Black Marlin caught off the Fraser coast, Qld in 2018, which is a long way from the traditional black marlin grounds of Cairns

The crew that got the 1,135 pounder won 1.165 million for it.

Chump change! 😀
The winning 85 lb White Marlin in the Ocean City WMO won over 3.2 million!

https://whitemarlinopen.com/

I watched that one get weighed in on the livestream. Up till about 2 years ago we would be there watching it live.

Had smoked Marlin tacos in Mexico that were very good. I caught a Marlin that came to the boat pretty beat up and crew wanted to keep it. Had some smoked and brought some home. Never had any cooked fresh.

If you have to smoke a fish to make it palatable, you don’t have a tasty fish. And marlin is nothing like swordfish…

Some fish like salmon are good cooked, raw, brined and cured or smoked. I only saw marlin sold fresh in the store a couple of times and never tried. Swordfish is a favorite.