Aaron,

Here’s a Marlin-X report from last week in Cancun.

The Poor Girl pulled the sailfish version of Marlin-X on the right/port side.  Unfortunately, I posted up on my normal left/starboard side of the cockpit.  I say unfortunately because the right side saw and got bites from approximately five times as many sails as the left side (my side).  That result was consistent for each of the days we fished.  While one might not with certainty be able to attribute that result to Marlin-X, you and I know that the left side of the Poor Girl has traditionally seen as many fish as the right side.

What I particularly found interesting was the reaction of both sailfish and frigate birds to Marlin-X.  Any number of times, our first sighting of sailfish in the spread was on Marlin-X.  Singles and multiples would appear within 10 feet of Marlin-X, as if they were checking out one of their kind.  On all but one of those occasions, we got bites either on the right side flat or rigger or the shotgun down the middle.  (Infrequently, they made it over to the left side!)  Usually when we saw a sail anywhere in the spread other than at Marlin-X, their dorsal fin was not fully displayed.  I believe because Marlin-X is designed with a full dorsal fin display, the sails that came to it consistently had their dorsals fully displayed—it appeared they were prepared to help Marlin-X “ball” whatever bait he was after!  In addition to seeing sails checking out Marlin-X, there were several times when a sail would suddenly appear attacking one of the squids rigged in a daisy chain immediately ahead of Marlin-X.  These sails, too, had their dorsals fully displayed.

Frigate birds appeared to be completely baffled by Marlin-X.  Noticing it in the spread, often from some distance away, they would approach and hover about 15’ above it for extended periods of time.  I’m sure its lifelike appearance and motion fooled the frigate birds into thinking it was a real sailfish attacking a bait.

Next trip, I’m going to try to sneak over to the right side!