Marlin-X

Is it real or is it Marlin-X!  In thirty years of marlin fishing, I have seen many things that work and many that don’t.  Marlin-X is one of those rare innovations that works.  This full-size white marlin or sailfish (your choice) swims in the teaser position of your spread with an action so realistic it will fool the most experienced anglers upon first seeing it. 

Marlin-X was developed by Aaron Horning, first mate on Capt. Jack O’Donnell’s “Poor Girl,” a 65-foot Carolina sportfisherman built by Paul Mann.  The Poor Girl is home-ported at Rudee Inlet in Virginia Beach.  Aaron is a young, enterprising engineer who is constantly innovating.  Marlin-X is his latest achievement.  As weekenders generally fishing just one day per week, the Poor Girl used the first prototype of Marlin-X during Summer 2007.  We rigged Marlin-X in-line behind a daisy chain of squid.  At trolling speed, its action is exactly like that of a billfish attacking a squid teaser! 

Once the Virginia Beach marlin season started, we caught billfish almost every trip, usually multiples.  Fishing just four days during September, we caught 21 billfish.  Our best day was 8 white marlin, but we had a day with 5, a day with 4, and a couple of days in the latter half of the month with 2 each, one of which was a blue marlin.  While these numbers may not be sufficient for bragging, one might consider them not bad for weekenders having real jobs during the week!  And while I wouldn’t say Marlin-X was the only reason for our positive results, I would say that it was at least a factor.  We caught fish on the flat line beside it and the short rigger behind it.  Perhaps more importantly, the fish we saw seemed quite aggressive, which we attributed to the competitive feeding appearance posed by Marlin-X.  I would recommend Marlin-X to any marlin fisherman desiring to improve their score.

Larry Davenport

Virginia Beach, VA