Ascension Island is a tiny somewhat arid and wind-blown chunk of lava jutting up from the Atlantic Ocean floor just off the mid-Atlantic ridge lying only eight degrees below the equator. As such it is positioned roughly equidistant from Luanda, Angola to the east and Recife, Brazil on the west. This 35 square-mile island is truly in the middle of nowhere. It is 750 to 900 miles away from any other land mass in any direction! That obviously is an advantage for big game anglers as there is little to no commercial fishing pressure, allowing pelagic species to roam and feed freely which explains why so many large tuna and marlins have been seen here. The converse of that isolation though is that Ascension Island is a difficult destination to reach. One has to fly to London and then catch a 9-hour chartered RAF flight from Brize Norton Royal AFB in Oxford down to Ascension. There are only 20 seats allocated to civilians on this once or twice weekly flight that continues on to the Falkland Islands.

I arrived somewhat exhausted at 7:30 in the morning after having been on the road or in the air for over 36 hours. Captain Trevor Cockle met me at the arrival center at “Wideawake airfield” and after collecting my luggage we hailed the only cab on the island to take us down to the village of Georgetown where he had tied up the skiff at the “dock.” There are only a thousand people living on the island and they all are transients being either active duty in the US or British Air Force or working for one of the companies contracted by the governmental forces to manage the island and its operations. The dock therefore was simply a small concrete extension at the end of some concrete stairs leading down to the water. We loaded my gear into the skiff and ran over to where the 110-foot mothership God’s Will was anchored. I had booked the Worldwide Marlin Adventures’ mothership/game boat operation, the former Madam & the Hooker, for the week of Thanksgiving.

I didn’t come all this way just for rest and relaxation, so after a quick shower and change of clothes I jumped aboard the game boat, a 48-foot G&S named God’s Favor, and we went fishing. Captain Trevor guided the boat out to the drop-off as mates Ben and Eric readied the equipment. We were trolling in beautiful clean deep cobalt blue water in less than 10 minutes from the time we left the mothership. An hour and a half later we found huge schools of tuna with birds diving on the bait balls so thick that they darkened the sky. It wasn’t long before we had our first strike, a 200-pound yellowfin tuna that pulled hook right at the boat after a ten-minute fight. An hour later I hooked a 250-pound yellowfin that we boated in 15 minutes. And just 30 minutes later a 500-pound blue marlin grabbed the Bart blue breakfast lure running in the short corner position but dropped it after running off only about 10 yards of drag. She came back up behind the right short bait but didn’t offer at it and then disappeared. Less than thirty minutes later another 200-pound tuna grabbed the long rigger bait but like the first one pulled hook at the boat. The next yellowfin struck the same bait about sixty minutes later. This fish was a stud so we pulled it into the boat after a 20-minute tug-of-war. It weighed a whopping 270 pounds according to the formula. Several hours later an Atlantic spearfish followed first the right and then the left corner baits for nearly ten minutes but eventually lost interest and dropped back out of sight. And we finished the day with an awesome yellowfin bite on the short corner bait. The 200-pound tuna crashed the bait from above leaving a huge crevasse in the water but incredibly avoided the hook. All in all this was quite a first day! We had hooked five 200-plus pound yellowfin, caught two, and had a quality marlin strike in addition to seeing a spearfish.
 

Mate Eric	Boat's engineer Barry Russ	Captain Trevor Cockle
Mate Ben	Hostess Trish	Mothership God's Will

The next day was Thanksgiving Day. This would prove to be the best afternoon of blue marlin fishing, although not catching, that I have ever seen or even heard about! We started the day heading north around the island purposely avoiding the huge schools of birds and bait that had commanded our attention the previous day. There was so much bait there we felt it might be difficult to distract a marlin away from it and chose to try to run across a hungry fish on the way to the “restaurant.” It was dead quiet though until we had nearly encircled the island at noon when we suddenly had a blind strike from a fish that did not stick. There were no marks on the lure or leader so we weren’t sure what our baits had attracted. We circled the area for awhile but to no avail.

It remained quiet as we trolled on until we once again found the massive bait balls we had discovered the previous afternoon. There were swarms of birds everywhere with bonito and skipjack tuna lathering the water as they devoured thousands of tiny triggerfish. Larger skipjack or otado and yellowfin were crashing and slashing the surface as well with white and blue marlins and hammerhead sharks cruising around the edges. There were literally acres of boiling water with birds so thick above it that at times one could hardly see the shore. I have seen huge tuna schools and flocks of birds before in the Revillagigedo Islands southwest of Baja, Venezuela, Hawaii, and French Polynesia but never have I seen a sight like this!

At 3 p.m. a huge blue crashed the Bart Ascension Pro Jet on the long rigger, turned, and sped away toward the horizon. She had taken me well down into the dacron backing on the reel by the time I had gotten to the chair and buckled in. Captain Cockle spun the boat around and we chased her down as I slowly regained line. We could see her still grey-hounding on the surface although it was so far way it was difficult to judge her size. When she turned and came toward us Trevor rushed the boat ahead as I frantically retrieved line and tried to avoid any slack. She came tight again and this time dove. Trevor spun the boat around again and we backed on her as I slowly pumped her to the surface. She came up jumping 50 yards off our port side after about a half-hour and put on quite a show. I got her nearly to leader three times before she ran again. Once again we had to chase her but not quite as far this time. She again turned back and ran toward the boat putting us through our paces but we were able to keep tight on her and had her back under the boat in another thirty minutes. After the third additional and progressively shorter run she seemed tired and was coming closer to the boat with each pump with little resistance, although by this time I was up to about 55 pounds of drag. Just as we got close to the leader the hook pulled! She lay there in the water for what seemed like an eternity and then swam away. Damn! It had been a tough and grueling one and a half-hour battle and I was a bit tired but gratified at having had the chance to participate in the contest. We had a good look at the big blue a number of times and we estimated her at between 1000 and 1100 pounds. With all of those tuna around she probably weighs 1200 pounds by now.
 
 

Skipjack tuna crashing the surface	Boiling water and birds	Tuna boils and diving birds
Swarms of birds and bait	Ascension frigate birds	Birds obscuring the view

We had just gotten the lures back into the water when a mammoth blue came up behind the short rigger bait. She had a massive head, a bill the size of my arm, and her tail was extending back into the next swell as her head bulged through the leading swell. She had to be 1500 or 1600 pounds. She stayed and eyed the lure for a few minutes and then disappeared. Fifteen minutes later we had a double-header hook-up of 200-pound yellowfin tuna which I was able to dispatch in about twenty minutes. We released the first one, about a 220-pound fish, in about 10 minutes. The rod connected to the second one had been left in the covering board. I grabbed it and then fought that one to the boat as well. Just as we got the second lure back in the water a 750-pound blue marlin grabbed it and took off to the races. I set the hook, got into the chair, and put some pressure on her. By now I was starting to get a little tired as I had already put in almost two hours of fighting on the first blue and the two tuna. I was able to turn this fish though and had her coming to the boat to be released after about 25 minutes when the hook pulled. This time we were able to get all of the lures back into the water before the next adventure but just barely. Less than ten minutes after we had lost the 750-pounder a gigantic fish came from the side, grabbed the Bart extreme breakfast teaser, broke it off the teaser line, and carried it back through the pattern with her only to vanish. This marlin seemed to be almost as big as the behemoth we had seen earlier behind the short rigger bait that we couldn’t entice to eat! Wow! That was the third grander we had seen in less than three hours! Twenty minutes later I was again hooked up. This time it was a 120-pound yellowfin that we released quickly. Having seen so many huge blue marlin but not yet catching one we weren’t about to quit. We caught a five-pound skipjack and quickly put it out on a bridle as a live-bait. It was a wonderful lively bait and I had great hopes for it but the skippie got eaten by a shark after twenty minutes. At 7 p.m. another very large blue marlin came up and ate the long rigger bait, ran off 25 yards of line, but didn’t catch steel. We got a good look at this fish as well and she also was probably a grander. We continued to troll another half-hour despite the fact the chef had Thanksgiving dinner on the table back at the mothership but finally quit after I caught another 100-pound yellowfin. We then ran back to the mothership for a shower and our turkey dinner. What an incredible afternoon it had been for action and excitement albeit not for catching blue marlin! We finished 0/4 on blue marlin bites and 4/4 on yellowfin tuna bites. We had however seen 4 grander blues and actually hooked two of them. Unfortunately they both pulled hook but I still had the fun of fighting them. Captain Trevor was beside himself going “O-fer” despite multiple opportunities on such huge marlin. We all felt however this awesome action was likely a good omen for what the rest of the week would bring. Trevor pointed out however that it was just past the full moon and historically the bite dropped off after the moon.
 
 

Now that's a stud yellowfin	Mates Ben and Eric "on station"	35 square mile island of Ascension
Some of the many antennas on the island	130-pound Shimano Tiagra ready for action	Another big yellowfin at the boat

The next morning it was sunny and warm again with only a light breeze. We started early after such a busy day the previous day. We had our lines in the water by 8:00 a.m. in the same area we had seen the frantic action just 14 hours earlier. It still looked “fishy” but was nowhere near as organized as it had been the previous afternoon. I caught a 45-pound wahoo shortly after we arrived. That was followed shortly by the appearance of an 800-pound blue marlin window shopper. She came up on the right short bait but dropped back and settled behind the left long all lit up. She made a rush at it but missed and then just sank out. The rest of the day we worked the bait and the birds continuously without so much as a strike. We even live-baited a 25-pound otado for an hour and a half but didn’t even get shark-bit. We went back to the mothership at 6 p.m. empty handed except for the wahoo which we ate for dinner. SHY III, the other game boat fishing the island, saw their first fish of the week, an 800-900-pounder that like our fish that day refused to eat.

My fourth day on the water was another nice warm and sunny day like the previous two days, but unlike day one when it rained intermittently. We started this day later as we had not seen a marlin before 9 a.m. thus far. We fished to the north around the island like we had our second day since we had such poor luck around the birds and bait on day three. It was dead quiet until 2:30 in the afternoon when a pair of sailfish came up and took a swat at the left long and short baits but missed and then swam off. By mid afternoon we had made it all the way around the island back to the bait but found it to be fairly scattered and disorganized. We did get a strike from a small blue that ran off 25 feet of line and was gone. He came back and looked at the left long but disappeared without another attempt. Late in the afternoon we finally found a large school of tuna working bait with at least a thousand birds above the action periodically diving into the melee. We worked this area hard until dark but never had a nibble. Shy III had pulled hook on a 450-pound blue after fighting her for 20 minutes and had raised a sailfish and another smaller blue but couldn’t get them to eat.

The morning of day five was overcast and cooler much like the first day but it warmed up in the afternoon. We fished to the southwest initially and had a short strike at 9:15. No one saw the fish but it was a marlin based on the scratches on the lure and leader. Thirty minutes later I hooked another small blue that we released after 5-10 minutes. The marlin was only about 150 pounds. Finally the string of bad luck was broken. We had actually caught a marlin. We were now 1/8 on blue marlin strikes but the only one we caught was the smallest fish we had seen. Later in the day we raised another spearfish that looked at our baits for a few minutes and then went away. The remainder of the day was quiet. The other boat had raised two blues, one a decent sized fish, but neither would eat. They were fishing way to the south and west of the island.
 
 

A hefty yellowfin on the deck	Green Mountain	God's Will at anchor
Ascension Island	Captain Trevor on the deck	Finally a blue

Day six was overcast early again but eventually the sun came out. We trolled to the south and west and eventually found some skippies working bait quite a ways off the edge in deep water. We raised a small blue just outside of our spread but it never made an attempt at the lures. We fished among the birds and bait all day but never saw another fish. The porpoise showed up in a ten-acre school about 6 p.m. and drove the skippies well offshore so we called it a day. The Shy III went dry today as well.

It was now day seven, my last day on the water at Ascension. I had caught 6 yellowfin tuna from 100-270 pounds in size but only one blue marlin, and it was the smallest blue we had seen and was just barely larger than the smallest tuna I had caught. I had had such incredibly high expectations for this trip in light of the brief history of the fishery. I knew that I had better get on the stick if I was to achieve the goals I had set for myself. That morning however was overcast and cloudy with intermittent light mist much like day one. This proved to be an omen of what the day was to be like as unfortunately the fishing proved to be as cool as the weather. We found the birds and bait early and worked aggressively around them all day but never saw a fish! We had to stop fishing about 5 p.m. so that I could get back to the mothership, shower, eat, finish packing, and make it to the airstrip on time to catch my flight back to London.

Ascension Island is an incredible albeit isolated fishing destination. I have never seen such action that would rival it when it was at its hottest. In my seven days on the island I had seen a large number of huge blue marlin, in fact 4 granders one afternoon alone! But I had simply had bad luck. The fish were not feeding aggressively and all of the fish I hooked had been foul-hooked and all of the quality blues had pulled hook. Also it seems that the best action is the week of the growing moon which would have been the week before I arrived. In fact the boat had gone 9/9 on blue marlin up to 900 pounds that week. Once again there is truth in that old adage “you should have been here last week.” However I still got to see those huge fish Thanksgiving Day, two blue marlin of which would probably have been new world records. And I fought 8 large fish in six hours that day, four yellowfin from 100 to 270 pounds and four blue marlin with two being over 1000 pounds! I have never experienced an opportunity like that anywhere else in the world.
 
 

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