California fisherman Kei Vang was out fishing on the Pacific Ocean in early August when he got the kayak ride of his life. Fishing from a 12-foot 9-inch pedal-drive kayak, Vang hooked a giant striped marlin and fought the fish for more than five hours. By the time he grabbed ahold of the leader and cut the line to release the fish, the marlin had towed him roughly 11 miles from where he’d first hooked it.
Vang, who made a Facebook post about the catch, tells Outdoor Life that he and two friends had left Dana Point in Southern California and headed offshore in their kayaks around 6 a.m. on Aug. 3. They were planning to fish for tuna. Vang says August is typically a good month for tuna on the West Coast, and they headed to a deep-water canyon where he’d caught them late last summer. After pedaling their kayaks roughly six miles to the spot, they started trolling live sardine baits with heavy tackle.
“There were no baitfish, not even birds,” Vang says. “We trolled with our heavy tackle for a couple hours and saw nothing. We were in about 600 feet of water.”
The anglers kept trolling in their sit-on-top kayaks, and Vang says they were about eight miles off Dana Point by 10 a.m. That’s when he decided to switch to a lighter rod and a slightly smaller reel spooled with 50-pound braid and a 30-pound leader.
Just 10 minutes later, he heard a big splash behind him. Looking back, he saw a marlin leaping and trying to throw the hook. His rod was already bent double.
“The marlin jumped about eight times immediately, and raced away,” Vang says. “It took almost all 350 yards of line off my reel. I had to tighten my drag and chase the fish to gain line. I pedaled as fast as I could and got back close to the marlin in about 10 minutes.”
He didn’t stay close to the fish for long, though. Over the next five hours, the marlin towed Vang and his Hobie Outback more than 10 miles across the Pacific Ocean. His friends stayed with him the whole time.
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“They never left my side,” Vang says of his fishing budies. “They made sure I was safe and okay. The marlin never stopped towing me.”
Vang and his friends kept track of their location using the GPS units mounted on their kayaks. He says they had extra batteries for reserve power, along with VHF radios and other safety gear.
The marlin finally began to tire about five hours into the fight, when it started circling underneath Vang’s kayak. He and his friends were about 20 miles from shore when he drew the fish close to his kayak and grabbed the leader, and the three anglers were finally able to get a good look at the billfish.
“For a while we thought it was a blue marlin … but we looked at our photos and videos later, and we now think it was a striped marlin,” says Vang, who guesses the fish was around 200 pounds. “It was as long as my Hobie [which is nearly 13 feet long], and there was no way we were going to gaff it and take it home. By then it was after 4 p.m., so we decided to cut my line and free the fish.”
The three anglers pedaled back toward shore for a few hours, but with nightfall approaching Vang’s GPS unit estimated it would take them another eight or nine hours to get back to Dana Point. So, they called another friend with a power boat, who met them around the 10-mile marker and gave them a ride, towing their kayaks back to shore.
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“Every kayak angler’s dream is to catch a big fish and have a photo made of it holding it up next to their yak,” says Vang. “That wasn’t possible with my marlin. But I may have a replicate mount made of it, which may be better than a photo anyway.”