Marlin Shark Attacks – Imagine you finally hook that marlin of a lifetime, the one that would finally push you over the “mark”. You fight the fish for hours, you have sweated out every last drop of water, your back is going to give, your arms are spent and then in an instant, your dream fish becomes shark bait.

We touched on this a little this morning with Capt. Marlin Scott (floridakeysradio.com). The Mozambique Grander (we reported on in an earlier blog) that had at least a 100+ lbs “taken” from it, but still passed the 1,000 lbs mark (it weighed 1,170 lbs).

Sharks attacking hooked marlin is nothingh new. If you fish enough, you will lose one to a shark at some point. It seems to be more prevalent on black marlin than any other species though. The main reason blacks are attacked more than blue marlin is most likely due to a larger abundance of sharks in the same waters as black marlin and the amount of large black marlin caught every year.

The Great Barrier Reef probably sees more “sharked” marlin than any other fishery. First is the abundance of big black marlin being caught. No fishery comes close in terms of size of fish. These larger fish tend to have longer fight times, hence more of a chance for the sharks to hear the “dinner bell”. The second factor that can’t be over-looked is just the pure abundance of sharks along the reef (any reef). Reefs draw sharks, so if you have the largest reef in the world, you are going to have a lot of sharks (Blue marlin tend to hang out in deeper waters).

We have attached a video of “sharked” marlin on the Great Barrier Reef below:

We are not THE authority on “sharked” marlin, so comments are welcomed.