Penn 500 Catches this!!! 144 lbs. Striped Marlin 9/25/1974

[El Pescador]

Ted sent this photo to me to post,

It is what a Penn 500 can catch with a skilled Fisherman at the helm.

Our very own, Randy Pauly, on Sept. 25, 1974!!!

Catching this 144 Lbs. Striped Marlin off Balboa Harbor area.



Randy, we ALL would LOVE to hear more about this special day and what YOU DID to land this beast on a stock Penn 500!!!!!

Inquiring minds DO WANT TO KNOW!!!!!

Wayne for Ted

[Crow]

Nice catch...and obviously, a pretty skilled fisherman !

[Brewcrafter]

Wow!  And that was back in the pre-Spectra days, so no chance of mega-mileage line capacity! - john

[milne]

Wow, that is awesome !!!....

Common Randy, we need the speel on this catch ??


Col

[Vintage Offshore Tackle]

Thank you for posting that photo Wayne (and thanks to you Ted for sending it to Wayne).  It sure does bring back memories.  It's hard to believe that it was almost 50 years ago.  Here's the "spiel" Colin:

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, striped marlin fishing was quite popular with the small boat sportfishing fleet in Southern California.  A number of clubs ran tournaments and doled out awards for the season's top boats, anglers, lady anglers, jr. anglers, etc. and there was fierce competition for those awards amongst the highliners.  Very few marlin were released back then.  They were almost all brought into the three primary weigh stations, the San Diego Marlin Club, Balboa Angling Club and the weigh station on the pier at Avalon, to great ceremony, usually including a cannon salute and a flag raising.  We used to snicker about the tourists, who ate it up, but I have to admit that I loved backing into the dock with a fish and hearing that cannon go off.

Tackle choices for local marlin fishing back then were very limited, and almost exclusively Penn.  There were (and this is still true) three primary techniques used for So. Cal. striped marlin: Trolling lures, slow trolling live bait, and casting or dropping back live bait to sighted fish.

Most trolling was done with 4/0 to 9/0 Penn Senators using resin headed skirted lures, which were just coming into their own in So. Cal around that time, even though they had been the go to marlin lure in the Hawaiian Islands for many years, the most popular then being Koga heads and Sevenstrand Konaheads.  A very few small Fin-Nors were in use, but since it was uncommon to see a striped marlin much over 200lbs., you rarely saw any of the big guns, with the exception of the half-dozen or less boats that targeted swordfish with heavy gear.

The overwhelming majority of the fish were taken casting live bait.  The reel of choice for live bait casting was the Jigmaster, and almost everyone used them. Remember that Penn made no aluminum spools at that time (Newell was just beginning to make them) so casting a Senator with its heavy spool was out of the question.  No one had even heard of Shimano or Daiwa.  These Jigmasters were fished box stock, asbestos drags and all.  Prior to Newell, there was very little in the way of aftermarket performance parts available, and no one considered them necessary. 

The heavy metal spool of the Jigmaster was not much of a problem because you were casting big heavy baits, usually green mackerel, or a small jack that we called Spanish Mackerel, or on rare occasions when they could be caught, large sardines.  The live bait would be caught with Lucky Joes, the precursors to Sabikis, under the lights at night or under kelp patties during the day.  This sort of fishing was much like hunting, as no baits were put into the water until a fish was sighted, then there would be a mad scramble at the bait tank to catch and hook a bait, then run to the bow of the boat as the captain maneuvered into position to make the cast, hopefully 10-20' in front of "tailers" or "sleepers", or right on top of "feeders".  With the exception of the light tackle specialists, most people loaded their Jigmasters with 30 or 50 lb. Dacron tied to a 10-15' 80-150lb mono leader.  The small line capacity of the Jigmasters was not a problem because the boat would stay close to the fish, and it was very rare for a striped marlin to sound more than 100 yards or so.  If they had chosen to go straight down, it would have been no problem for them to spool a Jigmaster, but I don't recall ever hearing of that happening.  The rods used for casting were normally 7-8' and most people had them custom made with extra large ring guides and roller ring tip to more easily clear the large leader to main line knot.

Regarding this particular fish, my best friend Bart Perlman and I were given permission to take his father's boat, the Lucky Nell, a 42' Kettenburg out of Newport Beach to the East End of Catalina Island to harpoon swordfish.  The Lucky Nell had been one of the top marlin boats back in the 1960s, but had shifted focus to commercial albacore and harpoon swordfish fishing by the early 70's.  The marlin fishing had been good, so Bart and I made our first stop at the harbor entrance to put a few mackerel in the bait tank, just in case a marlin made an offer that we couldn't refuse.

Bart and I were on the bridge, and had spent the morning locked into our Zeiss 7X50B binoculars looking for the telltale "two-fin" trademark of a finning broadbill, when a few hundred yards away I caught sight of the top of the tail of a marlin gliding downhill in the gentle swell.  Unfortunately, it was in front of and on the other side of a marlin boat that was obliviously trolling lures, parallel to us, and had not seen the fish.  We could not turn towards the fish without alerting the other boat, so we maintained course and speed, trying to not lose sight of the fish, until they were well past it, then Bart smoked 'em up and turned to an intercepting course while I raced to the bait tank to catch and hook a mackerel, which always seems more difficult when the pressure is on.  After fumbling a couple of attempts, I ran up to the bow and out to the end of the swordfish plank as Bart put us in position, unfortunately with the fish to the right side of the boat.  I prefer casting those big baits underhand, and being right handed, it's easy to underhand to the left but not so much to the right, so I launched an overhead cast, praying for no backlash.  The cast was short and off to the side of the fish, but the fish heard (or felt) it hit the water and did an instant 90 degree turn and was on the bait.  I did the customary 10 count as the boat glided to a stop and the line rolled off of the spool, and then the fish took off fast and I locked it up and set the hook hard several times (this was long before circle hooks were popular), and 45 minutes later we had it.  The Jigmaster performed flawlessly, although by the end of the fight, the asbestos drags were a little bit jerky and I had to keep tightening them.  By the time that we had the fish secured, the wind and chop were up, making it difficult to spot swordfish, so we headed in to get our picture taken.  We got a little bit of grief from his father for abandoning our mission, but I am pretty sure that he was secretly happy for us.

The next year I was hired to run a 38' Jeffries out of Marina Del Rey.  The owner rarely went out, and I made sure that he understood that it was very important for the boat to be run frequently, as bad things happened to boats that sat idle in saltwater.  He didn't have a problem with me taking the boat out, but I might have taken that privilege to an extreme when I took my cousin and his friend to see if the marlin fishing was as good as I had heard.  We were a motley crew.  I was worried that one of the owner's friends might be in Avalon that day, especially with the cannon going off, but I fortunately never heard about it!

[Vintage Offshore Tackle]

I wanted to add a photo but I seem to be locked out of my post and can't figure out how to get back in.  Anyone have any suggestions?

[Maxed Out]

 Wow Randy, sounds like you had a memorable day. You and Bart both look a little sassy in the pic. I bet it took weeks for that grin to wear off

[alantani]

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