FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - Cellphone video from a fishing tournament in Mexico showed a striped marlin nearly slamming into a competitor based in South Florida.
Kellie Strange, a member of the Pelagic Girl Team, said although it was a close call, it is normal in the highly competitive world of sport fishing.
“It’s a risk that you take,” Strange said. “It doesn’t happen very often. Sometimes, they just get in the boat.”
The marlin, which weighed between 100 to 150 pounds, could be seen jumping out of the water while the team reeled it in.
Strange said she thought she might be struck by the fish’s bill.
“It was a complete adrenaline rush,” Strange said. “You see our reaction in the video. It was unreal. It must’ve been a matter of three seconds that we realized it was coming in the boat.”
Michelle Dalton, Strange’s teammate, filmed the video from the boat’s top deck.
“It’s flying out of the water, and actually in about two seconds, before it hit Kellie, I was like, ‘I see this going completely wrong,'” Dalton said.
Another couple of inches, and the fish would have hit Strange. Luckily, the fish turned at the final moment and missed her.
“It body slammed me, so I kinda of, in the corner of my eye, saw the bill and the whole fish coming right me,” Strange said.
Now, Strange said, she has a new fishing story to tell that’s unlike any other.
“Nothing like that,” she said. “That’s something I’ll never forget.”
The Pelagic Girl Team earned $8,000 in the Mexico tournament.
Strange did not suffer any injuries from the flying fish.
Because the competitors do not pull the fish into the boat during the tournament, the marlin was later released back into the wild.
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