The half day trip ended later than scheduled as we had a strike on the way in. The fish took the short rigger lure and started to make big leaps out of the water while pulling line out of the reel very fast. Our South Aftican customers onboard were overwhelmed by the action as it had been a very quiet morning. After fighting hard ,the blue marlin went deep and died.It took another couple of hours to be able to get the fish at the surface.Luckily the line did not break under the extreme pressure and sharks did not take their share. The big blue marlin was first estimated at around 500 lbs but after the weighing it was closer to 650 lbs. Nice one for an end of season...