Outdoor Notes : Black Marlin Gives Newport Beach Banker Something to Talk About

Bob Stockwell never had much to say when his friends brought up the subject of fishing. His biggest fish, a 3-pound rainbow trout caught in the Eastern Sierra, certainly would not raise any eyebrows. Then, the Newport Beach banker went to Cabo San Lucas.

Stockwell, 45, has since returned and now has a story involving a giant marlin that few fishermen will be able to match.

“We were trolling small lures for wahoo and striped marlin,” he said. “That wasn’t working so we changed to bigger lures. Then, bang! Big Bertha hit the right lure and away we went.”

Stockwell, 45, fishing aboard the Reel Fast, a private yacht skippered by Troby Seebree, fought the marlin for 1 1/2 hours before he realized he was involved in a virtual standoff.

“It was a duel,” he said. “I would gain line and then it would gain line back. It was like a freight train going in the other direction.”

After 3 hours Stockwell did win the battle, and now has what he calls a 983-pound black marlin, taken on 80-pound-test line, to talk about.

And people are talking. At 983 pounds, it would be the biggest black marlin caught in Baja waters. However, since the fish was too big for the scale--it had to be towed onto the docks by a truck--its legitimate weight is in dispute.

John Doughty of Bisbee’s Tackle in Newport Beach, a respected authority on the subject of billfish, used a formula--which involves measuring the length and girth of the fish, and some multiplication--similar to that used for giant yellowfin tuna aboard San Diego’s long-range fishing boats.

He came up with 762 pounds, suggesting that the fish couldn’t have weighed more than 800 pounds.

Regardless, it was one of the biggest black marlin ever caught off Cabo San Lucas. Once subdued, it wouldn’t fit through the boat’s transom door and had to be towed back to the marina.

“And it took a truck to haul it onto the docks,” Stockwell said. “People were clamoring all over to try to get next to the fish.”

Meanwhile, Tom Mulkey of Palos Verdes, who made his third visit to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in November in search of a 1,000-pound black marlin, had just returned after accomplishing his goal.

“It was the final day and we had about 2 hours left before returning to port,” Mulkey said from his Inglewood office.

He and his son were fishing aboard the 56-foot Sea Strike at an area about 2 1/2 hours north of Cairns when the fish appeared.

They had just hooked a live 6-pound yellowfin tuna and tossed it off the stern when the fish rolled over the “skip bait,” a 12-pound dead bonito that skips across the surface. “At first we thought it was a shark,” Mulkey said.

It swallowed the bonito whole and took off.

“It came out of the water with it’s gill plates flared and it looked like a big elephant head with its trunk stuck out,” Mulkey said. “Then it came on like gangbusters.”

At that point, skipper Bruce Dallman guessed the fish might weigh as much as 1,400 pounds. In about 15 minutes Mulkey, using 130-pound-test fishing line, managed to get the marlin close enough to the boat to enable the crew to stick it with a flying gaff. The fish then took off on a sizzling run, the gaff tearing through its flesh in the process.

It jumped several times in its attempt to shake the hook, but Mulkey kept the pressure on and after 40 minutes he had successfully landed a 1,037-pound black marlin. His first “grander.”

“It’s a memory that’s been burning in my head ever since,” he said. “I know I’ll never again see anything like it.”

The Department of Fish and Game is in the process of restocking Tulare County’s Lake Success with game fish in hopes of restoring a fishery that underwent a chemical treatment at the beginning of November to kill off the non-game fish that had become too plentiful.

Biologist Nick Villa said that 9,000 rainbow trout, about 4,000 bluegills and 800 pounds of catfish have already been introduced into the lake behind Success Dam, about 8 miles east of Porterville on Highway 190.

Plans also call for the restocking of about 60,000 Florida strain black crappie and 1,000 red-ear perch, as well as two species of bass and more catfish.

The Southern California Bass Council is seeking volunteers to help with a habitat project at Lake Piru this weekend.

Chairman Al Terrell said that new brush structures will improve the chances of bass fry to survive.

Lake Piru is on California 126 west of Interstate 5 in the Simi Valley. Volunteers, who should bring work gloves, are asked to meet at the main gate Saturday and Sunday at 8:30 a.m.

Briefly

The third annual Fish for the Homeless Derby, scheduled for Dec. 11 in the waters off San Nicolas Island, has scheduled a second trip for Dec. 17, sponsor Tony Salas said. For details, call (213) 543-5088. . . . Robert W. Kubick of Anchorage, Alaska, has been awarded the Weatherby Big Game Trophy, given annually to a sportsman with noteworthy accomplishments in hunting and conservation. Kubick has collected 191 species recognized by the organization while hunting on six continents.

Johnny Mahfouz of Arkansas, who has been quacking competitively for 14 years, won the 53rd annual World Duck Calling Championships, held in late November at Stuttgart, Ark. . . . Ralph Cutter, Sierra guide, author and photographer, will be the featured speaker at the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers’ dinner meeting Dec. 15, 6:30 p.m. at the Odyssey Restaurant in Mission Hills.