June 3 What's Crazier?

Whats crazier, a weatherman that says light and variable winds and 1-2 foot seas and sends us out in a Center Console Nightmare......... Or a 300 lb Blue Marlin swimming in 90 foot of water? So this morning with a great weather forecast, we decided to go Dolphin fishing. We caught a couple of Almaco Jacks early and by 830am, it was increasingly difficult to drop live baits on a wreck in 90 feet of water. With seas and winds increasing, we started our troll to the SE with the wind and seas at our backs. Two hours later, we did a 180 degree turn and the first wave we met dipped the bow and put 100 gallons of sea water on deck... What was that forecast again? So now we're 30 miles offshore and beating our way back into 6 foot seas and a 20 kt NE wind. Great. Picking at the Dolphins. To make the story short and sweet, 2 hours later we are inshore of the 14 Bouy and I see an 8 foot torpedo surfing on top in the mounting seas. Hey what the hell is that I ask myself..... Its basic appearance was a combo of darker shades of brown and purple, it was a very rigid swimmer, its pectoral, tail, and dorsal fins were erect, it has some amount of striped coloration on its flanks, and (I'll be damned) that's a nice beak sticking off his freaking nose.... But this is 90 foot of water, so it can't be... Regardless, a quirk of fate and turn of fate just before seeing the damn thing has put it on a path, crossing right to left, right through our 6 ballyhoo spread. So I scream at my stunned crew, "Y'all see that?" And 3 out of 3, everyone sees it, everyone one of them argues every sensible excuse I can give as to how it can't be a Blue Marlin... So 3 veteran fishermen and one relatively inexperienced fisherman all agree... It was a screwed up, not hungry, somewhat "lost" Blue Marlin that passed through our spread, approximately 60 feet off our stern. The 6 foot waves that obscured him a couple of times, also showed him in plain view to us a couple of times. The angry, but educated fisherman in me wouldn't allow me to believe what I was seeing. Not here, not now. If the bastard would've just ate a damn ballyhoo, all doubt would've been removed..... We were so mad a Skip Waters, that Blue Marlin was headed for the damn grill if he'd been hungry and "made our day".  Anyway, 40 Black Sea Bass and a timely Coast Guard Boarding later we came in and had a long discussion. The unanamous opinion- it was a Blue Marlin.... Total Catch for the Day: 12 Dolphin to 16 lbs, 2 Almaco Jacks to 18 lbs, 40 Black Sea Bass to 3 lbs