The best place for Blue Marlin in the Atlantic

Cape Verde in April 2014

We fished for a total of six days. The first day was on the Siratigui and the following five on the Amelia with skipper Zak Conde and his mates Xi and Mike. We fished using the outriggers with 2 marlin lures from our own range (single hook set-ups) and with 2 teasers for bait and switch at closer quarters.

This is how we got on:

  • Day 1: During the morning we tried our luck jigging for amberjacks – unfortunately with no success. Towards midday we started fishing for marlins, had two bites and we able to catch a fine fish of around 500 lbs with our “Striker” lure.
  • Day 2 on the Amelia – We had only a single strike all day but captured a beautiful marlin of approx. 450 lbs. which took our “Big Smoker” lure.
  • Day 3 – We were able to raise a total of 4 marlins, three of which were hooked. One fell for our “Little Grander” lure and the other two marlins were caught on bait and switch.
  • Day 4 – Two marlins came up behind our teasers and we caught both of them, each weighing about 300 lbs, using the bait and switch method.
  • Day 5 – We attracted 3 fish with our teasers and managed to capture 2 marlins. One weighed 400 lbs. and the other over 600 lbs. We also raised three marlin with our lures, one of which weighing about 250 lbs. was hooked on our “Little Grander”.
  • Day 6 – This was an awful day and we had no luck at all. 5 strikes and not a single hook-up. 🙁

Summary: by the end of the six-day trip we had logged up 20 marlin strikes and hooked 10 of them which were in the 250 to over 600 lbs. range. Four marlins took our “Little Grander”, “Big Smoker” and “Striker” lures.

We caught 6 marlin with the bait and switch method using small bonitos on circle hooks. The teasers used were our “Grander 1238” lures.

Stephan Kreupl, April 2014