A unique website dedicated to fishing information from Florida's Northern Big Bend. This includes the area from the Econfina River west to the Apalachicola River
That fish was waaayyyy too green to be backing down on, in my opinion... Skipper must be a real "hot rod" to be backing down that fast, you are asking for trouble taking water over the transom with a cockpit full of excited people.
Bout 55 years ago, i was fishin a Women'sBlue Marlin tourney in Bimini. We lost a big blue after fighting it for almost an hour, so all the landing equipment was in place in the cockpit. The captain felt the fish just got too far away from the boat and the "line drag" caused the line to break!! As soon as the first line was put up in the outrigger, another marlin crashed the bait and we had another "fish on"!! The fish started tailwalking away from the boat, and the captain started backing down like crazy! All of a sudden the fish did a 180 and was grayhounding directly at the boat. Before anyone could react the fish bounced off the transom and was laying in the water stunned !! The flying gaff was right there and we stuck him and pulled him in the boat -- and then he came alive and it took everyone to hold him down! Turned out to be the winning fish in the tourney and was a world record at that time -- 358 pounds on 80# test. Just a fluke, right place,right time