Морская охота на марлинов: спорт, трофеи и история

Marlin fishing or billfishing is offshore saltwater game fishing targeting several species of fast swimming pelagic predatory fish with elongated rostrum collectively known as billfish, which include those from the families Istiophoridae (marlin, spearfish and sailfish) and Xiphiidae (swordfish). It is considered by some fishermen to be a pinnacle of big game fishing, due to the size, speed and power of the billfish and their relative elusiveness. Of all the billfish species, 10 of them are of the most interest to blue water anglers: Atlantic and Pacific blue marlin, black marlin, white marlin, striped marlin, Atlantic sailfish, Indo Pacific sailfish, longbill spearfish, shortbill spearfish and the swordfish. Fishing for marlin captured the imagination of some sport fishermen in the 1930s, when well known angler/authors Zane Grey, who fished for black, striped and blue marlin in the Pacific, and Ernest Hemingway, who fished the Florida Keys, Bahamas and Cuba for Atlantic blue marlin and white marlin, wrote extensively about their pursuit and enthused about the sporting qualities of their quarry. These days, a lot of resources are committed to the construction of private and charter billfishing boats to participate in the billfishing tournament circuit. These are expensive purpose built offshore vessels with powerfully driven deep sea hulls. They are often built to luxury standards and equipped with many technologies to ease the life of the deep sea recreational fisherman, including outriggers, flying bridges and fighting chairs, and state of the art fishfinders and navigation electronics.

The blue marlin of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are more widely pursued by sport fishermen than any other marlin species. Their wide distribution in tropical oceanic waters and seasonally into temperate zones makes them available to many anglers, and their potential to reach great sizes and spectacular fighting ability makes them a highly desired catch to some anglers.

Blue marlin are one of the world's largest bony fish and although adult males seldom exceed , females may reach far larger sizes well in excess of A Pacific blue weighing caught in 1970 by a party of anglers fishing out of Oahu, Hawaii, aboard the charter boat Coreene C skippered by Capt. Cornelius Choy (this fish often referred to as 'Choy's Monster') still stands as the largest marlin caught on rod and reel. This fish was found to have a yellowfin tuna of over in its belly. In the Atlantic, the heaviest sport fishing capture is Paulo Amorim's fish from Vitoria, Brazil. Commercial fishermen have boated far larger specimens, with the largest blue marlin brought into Tsukiji market in Tokyo supposedly weighing a massive
Large blue marlin have traditionally been amongst the most highly prized angling captures, and a fish weighing , a "grander", has historically been regarded by blue and black marlin anglers as the benchmark for a truly outstanding catch. Today, much effort is still directed towards targeting big blue marlin, but smaller blues are also sought by anglers fishing lighter conventional tackle and big game fly fishing gear. Blue marlin occur widely in the tropical oceanic waters of the Atlantic and the Indo Pacific, with many fish making seasonal migrations into the temperate waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres to take advantage of feeding opportunities as those waters in spring and summer. Warm currents such as the Gulf Stream in the western Atlantic and the Agulhas Current in the western Indian Ocean serve as oceanic highways for blue marlin migration, and have a major influence on their seasonal distribution. Blue marlin have a limited ability to thermoregulate, and the lower limit of their temperature tolerance is thought to be in the region of about although individual fish have been caught in cooler temperatures. Larger individuals have the greatest temperature tolerance, and blue marlin encountered at the limits of their range tend to be large fish. This wide distribution brings blue marlin in contact with anglers in many parts of the world. Blue marlin are eclectic feeders preying on a wide range of prey species and sizes. Scientific examination of blue marlin stomach contents has yielded organisms as small as miniature filefish. Common food items include tuna like fishes, particularly skipjack tuna and frigate mackerel (also known as frigate tuna), squid, mackerel, and scad. Of more interest to sport fishermen is the upper range of blue marlin prey size. A white marlin has been recorded as being found in the stomach of a blue marlin caught at Walker's Cay in the Bahamas, and more recently, during the 2005 White Marlin Open, a white marlin in the class was found in the stomach of one of the money winning blues. Shortbill spearfish of have been recorded as feed items by Kona blue marlin fishermen. Yellowfin and bigeye tuna of or more have also been found in the stomachs of large blue marlin.

Fishing styles and gear used in the pursuit of blue marlin vary, depending on the size of blue marlin common to the area, the size of fish being targeted, local sea conditions, and often local tradition. The main methods used by sport fishermen are fishing with artificial lures, rigged natural baits, or live bait.

The pioneers of blue marlin angling employed natural baits rigged to skip and swim. Today, rigged baits, particularly Spanish mackerel and horse ballyhoo continue to be widely used for blue marlin. Also, the American eel is considered to be one of the best rigged baits due to its natural swim tendencies when properly rigged. Trolling for blue marlin with rigged baits, sometimes combined with an artificial lure or skirt to make "skirted baits" or "bait/lure combinations", is still widely practiced, especially along the eastern seaboard of the United States and in the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Venezuela. Rigged natural baits are also used as "pitch baits" that are deployed after fish are raised to hookless lures or "teasers".

Blue marlin are aggressive fish that respond well to the splash, bubble trail, and action of a well presented artificial lure. Trolling with lures is probably the most popular technique used by blue marlin crews today. Hawaii is recognized as the birthplace of lure trolling for marlin, with skippers operating from the Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii developing many designs still used today. The earliest marlin lures were carved from wood, cast in drink glasses, or made from chrome bath towel pipes and skirted with rubber inner tubes or vinyl upholstery material cut into strips. Today, marlin lures are produced in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, and colours, mass produced by large manufacturers and individually crafted by small scale, custom makers. A typical marlin lure is a small , medium to large ( or more) artificial with a shaped plastic or metal head to which a plastic skirt is attached. The design of the lure head, particularly its face, gives the lure its individual action when trolled through the water. Lure actions range from an active side to side swimming pattern to pushing water aggressively on the surface to, most commonly, tracking along in a straight line with a regular surface pop and bubble trail. Besides the shape, weight, and size of the lure head, the length and thickness of skirting, the number and size of hooks, and the length and size of the leader used in lure rigging all influence the action of the lure: how actively it will run and how it will respond to different sea conditions. Experienced anglers often fine tune their lures to get the action they want. Lures are normally fished at speeds of ; faster speeds in the range are also employed, primarily by boats with slower cruising speeds traveling from spot to spot. These speeds allow quite substantial areas to be effectively worked in a day's fishing. A pattern of four or more lures is trolled at varying distances behind the boat. Lures may be fished either straight from the rod tip ("flat lines"), or from outriggers.

Live bait fishing for blue marlin normally uses small tuna species, with skipjack generally considered the best choice. As trolling speed is limited because baits must be trolled slowly to remain alive, live baiting is normally chosen where fishing areas are relatively small and easily covered, such as near fish aggregating device buoys and in the vicinity of steep underwater ledges.

Areas where bottom structure (islands, seamounts, banks, and the edge of the continental shelf) creates upwelling, which brings deep nutrient rich water close to the surface, are particularly favoured by blue marlin.

Black marlin (Makaira indica) are found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans with some vagrant individuals having been reported from the south Atlantic.

Black marlin fishing has traditionally conducted with rigged dead baits, both skipping and swimming. In the historic Cabo Blanco fishery, little blind trolling was done; instead, the billfish (striped marlin, black marlin, and swordfish) were sighted cruising or finning on the surface and baited. In the Cairns fishery, a wide variety of baitfish species are used successfully, including kawa kawa and other small tunas, queenfish, and scad. Baits range from scad to dogtooth tuna and narrowbarred mackerel of and more. The use of live bait is also popular for targeting both large and small black marlin, and under the right circumstances, is extremely effective, although sharks and other nontargeted gamefish can often be a problem with this method. Small live baits such as slimy mackerel and yellowtail scad are highly effective for juvenile black marlin, and are fished both by slow trolling and drifting. Live bait techniques for larger black marlin are similar to those used for blue marlin, normally employing bridle rigged live tunas of The use of a downrigger has proven to be helpful in positioning baits deeper in the water column. Artificial lures will catch black marlin of all sizes from juveniles to the giant females of and more. The prevalence of lure damaging bycatch such as wahoo, barracuda, and Spanish (narrowbarred) mackerel in some areas can make lure fishing an expensive proposition. However, the faster pace of lure fishing allows larger areas to be searched effectively, which can be an advantage if the fish seem more dispersed.

Striped marlin (Tetrapturus audax) occur in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

In Mexican hot spots such as Cabo San Lucas and in Southern California, anglers cast live baits such as mackerel and caballito (scad) to striped marlin that may be sighted feeding or finning on the surface. Conventional live bait trolling at slow speeds is also highly effective when concentrations of marlin can be located. Experienced skippers fishing from ports such as Bermagui on the south coast of New South Wales have in the recent past racked up scores of over 100 striped marlin per season fishing this relatively simple technique at the right time at the right place. Larger baits such as kahawai and skipjack tuna are often used for the large striped marlin of New Zealand. Deep dropping live baits with the aid of sinkers can bring live baits deeper to feeding fish. This tactic is frequently used in Mexico and Australia. It is considered somewhat lowbrow (it has been described as "snapper fishing for marlin"), but is nonetheless highly effective when deep feeding activity occurs.

White marlin (Tetrapturus albidus) are distributed throughout the tropical and seasonally temperate oceanic waters of the Atlantic. The smallest of the marlin species, with a potential maximum size of around , they are sought after not for their size, but for their speed, leaping ability, elegant beauty, and the difficulty that anglers often encounter in baiting and hooking them. They are a premier light tackle gamefish. The "hatchet marlin", long thought to be a variant of the white marlin distinguished by dorsal and anal fins with a chopped off rather than rounded appearance, has recently been confirmed as a separate species in the genus Tetrapturus, the roundscale spearfish. Nearly indistinguishable from white marlin, most tournaments treat hatchet marlin catches as white marlin. Both species are fished for in the same way. White marlin feed on a variety of schooling baitfish, including sardine, herring, and other clupeoids; squid; mackerel; scad; saury; and smaller tuna like fishes, such as frigate and bullet tuna. Like their close relatives the striped marlin, and sailfish, white marlin will often group together to corral schooling baitfish into a tight group for feeding purposes, a phenomenon commonly referred to as "balling bait". When this occurs, it is common for two or more fish to be raised to the baits or hooked up simultaneously.

The main threat to marlin, along with other highly migratory pelagic fish, is commercial fishing. Billfish of all species are taken as commercial targets and as bycatch in tuna and swordfish fisheries. Another major threat to marlin are recreational competitions that run using "catch anything" practices, such as longline fishing, driftnet fishing and other indiscriminate methods. There is also insufficient regulation to ensure that fisheries comply with rules. Hypoxia may also be a threat to billfish populations due to the widespread decrease in life supporting oxygen levels in more and more large areas of our oceans. In 2010, Greenpeace International added the striped marlin, white marlin, Atlantic blue marlin, black marlin, and Indo pacific blue marlin to its "seafood red list". TBF's signature research project is the traditional tag and release program that uses the efforts of anglers to provide data and research to scientists and fisheries managers. Awareness of the need to conserve billfish stocks worldwide has led to an increasing trend for recreational anglers and skippers to release their catches in as healthy a condition as possible. In some areas of the world, commercial fishing for striped, black and blue marlin has been banned.