Recently my daughter Carrie e-mailed me to have me check out this video of a guy jumping out of a helicopter to catch a free swimming marlin.  She knew I would get a kick out of seeing it, and she also wanted me to help solve an argument she and her friends where having as to whether it was real, or simply Hollywood at its best.  Check out this video, it is truly awesome.  Real, however, it is not.

To the friends of my wonderful daughter this appeared real indeed.  To someone like myself, or any of my friends who have also spent a lifetime trying to better understand and figure out marlin and other highly migratory fish, this is an impossibility made to look real through some very clever and outstanding camera work.  Whether or not it actually happened does not change the fact that this is a way cool ocean video.

The video features adventure fisherman Matt Watson, star of the Discovery Network series Man vs. Fish.  Matt is a great entertainer and we mean no disrespect, as he is an avid promoter of responsible catch and release fishing, and helps drive awareness of our beloved sport.  He has caught marlin from a surfboard and a jetski, and a shark from a child’s inflatable raft.  In this particular episode, they’ve found a marlin near a feeding frenzy of dorado and proceed to hover the helicopter over the fish, allowing Matt to dive head first into the water (with his sunglasses on) tackling the marlin unaware, and then riding it for a few seconds and releasing it.

So what might have actually happened?  My speculation is that the marlin was caught in the traditional way, with a fishing rod and reel.  After a long, drawn out battle the weary fish was pulled along side the boat, photographed for posterity and carefully released, at which time the film crew was already in the water, ready to shoot the “helicopter jumper” as he jumped the couple of feet from the side of the boat onto the worn-out fish.

But again, I take nothing away from the entertainment value of watching a man jump from a helicopter onto one of the most amazing and sought after game fish in the ocean and wrestle it bare handed.  It’s fun to see what you can do in the video edit suite!

Our main goal with this blog will be to bring you directly from Guy Harvey his insights and personal accounts of his many adventures and expeditions in the ocean world.  We also will bring you guest blogs from additional experts on ocean issues and we will bring you the most interesting videos that deal with the ocean and the fish who call it home.   Real or not, this is one such video.  Pass this on to your friends and you are guaranteed to have some interesting conversation as to whether this is real or not.

We invite your comments!

–Bill Shedd President of AFTCO Bluewater