The black marlin `Makaira indica’ is a species of marlin found in tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific oceans not far from the surface. It is a large commercial game fish with a maximum published weight of 750 kg, but greater weights are known. It is one of the largest bony fish species.
When you go after black marlin with a fly rod, you are looking for a runt. If you hook a small fish, like a 100-pounder, you have a chance. Hook a giant black marlin on a fly rod, and you may as well just break it off. You don’t have a chance. Black marlin can reach weights of more than 1,000 pounds (the IGFA record is 1560 pounds), and fish this size can only be caught with industrial-strength conventional tackle.
Black Marlin are found almost exclusively in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, mostly in tropical waters. They range from Mexico to Peru in the eastern Pacific and all the way from Japan to Australia and New Zealand in the western Pacific Ocean. They’re said to be the most numerous of all marlin around Taiwan. Although they are a pelagic, open-ocean species, they are known to congregate around islands and coastal areas–or at least that’s where they are most often caught.
The most distinguishing features of black marlin are their pectoral fins, dorsal fin, and coloration. Of all the members of the marlin family, only black marlin have rigid pectoral fins. They’re always extended at right angles to the fish and can not be folded back along the fish’s body without breaking them. The big dorsal fin of a black marlin (technically its first dorsal fin) is smaller than that of all its relatives. And, its pelvic and ventral, fins are proportionately smaller than other marlins too. On a black, they’re almost always less than twelve inches long, regardless of the size of the fish.
The back of a black marlin is indeed black, or dark slate blue, and normally void of any stripes. The sides of the fish are white or silver, and all fins are dark. When feeding or leaping, a series of light blue stripes may appear on the side of the fish. The lateral line is an inconspicuous double row of pores and is generally not visible in any but the smallest fish.
Black marlin may appear a little heavier than they really are because their bodies are deep with a slight shoulder hump that other marlin species don’t have. And since a black marlin’s sides are flat and the body is not rounded, the perception of a black marlin being larger than a blue or striped marlin of the same length is just a deceiving appearance.
Fly fishers have fished for billfish for a relatively short period of time. In most situations involving a Captain and crew, the fish are usually teased to within casting distance of the transom of the boat and then the fly is cast before the fish. Anyone who has caught several marlin this way say the size and color of the fly needn’t be exotic or humongous, but that you’d better use two hooks to tie the flies, and mount one shank at a 90-degree angle to the other. That’s to increase the chances of hooking up with the fish rushes the fly “lit up” like a Christmas tree.
