The big one didn’t get away. Just ask 11-year-old Lottie Davis.
The Mintz Christian Academy student recently reeled in a 490-pound blue marlin during a last-minute fishing trip in Jamaica with her father, Matthew Davis, on Aug. 6.
Davis and his daughter, of Clinton, sat down for an interview earlier in the week, recounting the experience.
“She did good,” dad Matthew attested, pride evident in his voice. “She fought that one for over two hours. That’s a long time to reel in a fish. … He pulled the line off the reel so fast that you couldn’t touch it because it heated up.”
He said he and Lottie go fishing “quite a bit. … Everywhere we go, Lottie and I go deep sea fishing.”
Davis recalled the day of that last-minute fishing trip. “We just looked around to try to find us a boat to go out on, found that one, and took off.”
Davis told how there were around 12-foot waves “in the middle of a thunderstorm” the day Lottie caught the blue marlin.
He said the boat captain recommended “the best place to catch a marlin was when a storm rolled in — on the edge of them — so we got as close as we could, and that’s when she hooked it.”
After the boat returned to shore, the crew divided the fish among themselves and took it to local families. Most of the time, fish are caught and then released, but “occasionally, some of the boat crews will keep snapper fish,” Davis explained. “She (Lottie) got a pretty large tuna fish when we were in Hawaii once, and we actually kept part of it to eat and gave the rest to the boat crew.”
“The time I caught that giant tuna, when I first woke up and got in that boat, I was so excited I got seasick,” Lottie recalled.
Davis added that the waters were rough that day, too.
Looking back again at the blue marlin, Davis commented that, “I think this would be the biggest fish that most people catch in a lifetime.”
“Actually, I’m not the only one who’s caught a big fish,” an excited Lottie interjected. “My little brother, he’s also caught a big fish, and it was actually a sand tiger shark. … They literally just cut the line.”
Lottie mentioned that some of her favorite fish she’s caught include the blue marlin, a dolphin fish, and a catfish, who now lives in a pond that the family owns.
“The time when I said I wanted a dolphin fish, and in five minutes, it just came,” Lottie exclaimed. “I don’t really know what I’m gonna catch, but I’m hoping to catch a shark next,” she revealed.
Dad can only shake his head listening to his sixth-grader.
“I’ve stopped being shocked when she says she’s gonna catch something. I just listen to her, because that’s pretty much what’s going to happen,” he acknowledged.
“She kind of thinks she’s Babe Ruth and calls her fish. … I always tell people one day, she’ll let me catch one, but she hasn’t yet.” He remarked that Lottie catches more fish than him “every time.”
For age 11, Lottie has caught more fish than most grown men. She catches 50-70 fish at a time during competitions, the pair said.
“One of my best friends is one of the leading taxidermists in the nation…and I had asked him where was the best place to get the marlin mounted, and he was like, ‘I’ve fished every day of my life for 46 years, and I’ve never been on a boat with someone who’s caught one,” he recalled.
When Lottie caught the marlin, the boat crew struggled to get it lifted onto the boat.
“It was a 65-foot boat, and we couldn’t get the whole thing in the air to get a picture of the whole fish,” said Davis.
“They said she, out of that marina, was the first person in over a week to catch a fish, and that was the first marlin that boat had ever seen. Then we went the next day back to the marina and watched the boats come in, and nobody had caught a fish that day out of all the boats, but they were all talking about her’s. All of the other boat captains had pictures of her fish, and were showing others what was out there, so that was kind of neat,” Davis mentioned.
Lottie thinks the compliments are neat, too.
“As soon as I caught that blue marlin, everybody just started following us,” Lottie remembered.
“Then nobody still caught a fish,” recalled Davis, “and then she caught a mahi-mahi fish — that dolphin fish — right after that — “ and then they started following us again,” Lottie interjected, laughing.
“Everywhere we go, it’s funny,” Davis observed. “All of the captains will usually groan because all they see is this little girl coming. I always tell them, ‘She’ll out-fish everybody else…trust me, she’s a pro,’ and then after she does, they’re like, ‘You’re right.’”
Davis described how Lottie can read the water and tell people where the birds are, where the boat needs to go, and where the fish are going to be.
“She watches the dolphins and goes around them…it’s really cool to see her on the water. It’s not just like a typical kid went out and caught a fish. She sees stuff that most other anglers miss.”
Lottie, Davis said has always been that way. “She would rather be in or around the water, and that’s where she’s at home.”