Monster from the deep

Don't bother Tom Crader with chit-chat about long fishing odds.

Before Crader, 59, headed off deep-sea fishing from Kona's Honokohau Harbor last month, the Anchorage angler didn't know how unlikely it was he'd connect with a memorable deep-sea fish.

• Since the 1950s, only some 150 black and blue marlin weighing 1,000 pounds or more have been taken in Hawaii waters. Some years go by without a single fish that large reaching the docks.

• In the last 50 years, only one so-called "grander" had been landed in Kona during the month of December.

• And Crader was a Hawaii angling rookie.

But marlin fishing is a rare treat for Alaskans who can afford it -- full-day charters range from about $800 to $2,000. Right outside the harbor, water depth drops swiftly to several thousand feet. Even on a fishless day, the warm ocean breezes offer a welcome contrast to a cold, rainy day of halibut fishing up north.

Crader, an occasional salmon angler back home, was visiting the Big Island for the first time. He'd seen the wonders of Hawaii Volcanos National Park and tried parasailing. Marlin fishing was more a whim than a plan.

"We were just going over for a few days to get out of the cold," he said.

But fishing aboard the Game Plan with captain Guy Terwilliger, Crader landed a 1,011-pound blue marlin on Dec. 27.

"It felt like hooking onto the back of a car," Crader said. "About the first 30 seconds after he hit, he had nearly 700 yards of line out."

The day didn't begin that way. In fact, the first fish caught weighed 100 times less than the trophy marlin -- a 10-pound mahi-mahi.

THAT'S NOT A MAHI-MAHI

The second hit came about 9:15 a.m., and at first Terwilliger thought it was another mahi. Not for long.

"I heard the fish start to take line off the reel," he said. "Then the marlin came up skipping along the side of the boat. It jumped right next to us."

Crader's girlfriend, Linda Milan, quickly gave up her spot in the boat's fighting chair.

"The fish came out of water three times before we could even get to the pole," Crader said. "I think he was headed to the Great Barrier Reef."

At first, Terwilliger put the boat in reverse to pursue the fast-moving fish -- but quickly realized he'd have to turn the vessel for the chase. For a while, Game Plan followed at about 8 knots, which wasn't fast enough for Crader to recover much line.

"If we had not chased it," Terwiliger said, "the marlin would have smoked the line off the reel."

As it was, the big fish nearly spooled the reel of its 700 yards of 130-pound test on three different occasions.

Finally, Crader recovered a bit of line -- helped by the fact the marlin didn't dive deep.

"It came up to the surface," Guy said. "And we got all but about 100 yards back on the reel before it sulked."

The marlin began stripping line again, though much more slowly. By now the fish was exhausted, and Terwilliger and crewman Doug Pattengill worried that if it slipped into the depths, its weight would be too great to recover.

SKIPPER SHINES

That's where Terwilliger's 29 years of Hawaii fishing experience paid off. With the drag tight, he used the boat to pull against the line to make the fish rise up before quickly powering toward the fish as Crader cranked.

It worked. About an hour and 20 minutes after the first scorching run, the battle was over. The fish was tagged and released; boat owner Bob Holding's rule is to release all marlin caught except potential granders or tournament winners.

"These days, wherever possible people are releasing granders," said veteran Hawaii fishing writer Jim Rizutto, author of the book "Kona Fishing Chronicles."

"Typically, boats are only keeping one or two a year," he said, "and usually only if they die in process of catching them."

That's exactly what happened to Crader's fish, which rolled over, belly up. Some fish, particularly older ones, cannot survive such an exhausting battle.

Pattengill snatched the leader.

Then Terwilliger and Pattengill rigged up a tow rope and headed back to harbor, dragging the marlin. At the scales, Terwilliger began to realize he may have underestimated the fish's size.

In nearly three decades of fishing in Kona, the captain had caught six marlin exceeding 900 pounds.

"You catch a 900-pounder and you get a lot of 'atta-boys.' When word spread about the grander, people started showing up with cases of beer," he said.

After all, landing a grander is the Kona charter boat captain's version of winning an Oscar.

"It's very big, very big," said Heather Goto, who runs the Honokohau Harbor charter desk. "We have captains here who have been fishing more than 50 years and haven't caught one. It's a party for a few days."

Reach reporter Mike Campbell at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.
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