Man gets marlin, rib fracture

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Kim Pennington, who runs a nursing care home, came by last week with a fish story that began as a seventh wedding anniversary and ended up with her husband, Tod, assistant manager in a supermarket, in the hospital with a fractured rib.

"We decided to get away for a few days," said Kim, "so we splurged at the Grand Wailea on Maui. Tod said, 'Let's drive in to Lahaina. Have you ever been game fishing?' " Kim hadn't. She didn't know a marlin from a minnow.

They priced fishing charters at little huts on the dock until they found one willing to take them out for half price, $300.

"That's a lot of money," Kim told Tod. "It could go toward education."

"Well, do you want a real memory for your anniversary or not? You've never been fishing. Let's go."

So they sailed away. Kim said it was very romantic, no other fishermen on the boat, only the captain and his helper. She sat on the bow under a balmy sun.

"It was so beautiful," Kim recalled. "I got all lotioned up. They told us, when you hear a 'wheeeeee,' you're supposed to say, 'Fish on the line.' I sat on the bow and whistled." Later, Tod said that's what did it.

The line wheeeeeed and they put Kim in the chair to catch her first fish. The captain told her to wind the reel but she couldn't. Then the fish jumped out of the water and Tod said, "Ohhhh, my God!"

There she was with a 590-pound marlin on the other end of the line. Judging from her size, I'd say that the marlin weighed six times more than she does. Everybody decided that Tod better take over.

"That's when it began," she said. "He's only 180 pounds. It's incredible. He's so strong. The captain said, 'This is going to take time. You caught it, you reel it in.' We didn't know how hard it was going to be. The fish was pulling the boat."

An hour later, Kim was giving Tod sips of water and wiping his face. She told him, "Now you know what giving birth is like."

At the end of two hours, Kim said, Tod couldn't pull anymore. "He was in pain. It was like fighting a horse." All of them had underestimated the size of the fish.

Finally, when the fish was dead in the water, the captain and his helper helped pull on the line. The fish was too big to bring into the boat. Kim said, "We had to tie it with six ropes to the side."

They sailed proudly into Lahaina, flying the blue marlin flag.

"Ten guys had to drag it out of the water," Kim said. "It bent the hoist. Everybody wanted to take pictures. It was 590 pounds, 12 feet, 11 inches long, the record by one pound for the year. But it was a girl. I felt so bad.

"We couldn't put it in the rent-a-car and we had no license to sell fish. So we gave it to the boat company."

Then Kim took Tod to the hospital. He was diagnosed with a fractured rib and torn chest muscles.

Bob Krauss can be reached at 525-8073.