Gary Gardner, from northern Virginia, and crew were taking one of their first trips offshore.... dreamed of catching a big fish.....and wanted some fish to bring home, but didn't need much.... so we headed north where we have had excellent blue marlin fishing (yesterday we pulled the hook on two) in unusually shallow (25-40 fathoms) water....... luck was in their favor today..... we lost the first two mahi that got after us, but recovered nicely when a nice blue marlin appeared on the teaser, Lee switched him off to a pitch bait and off we went....HOOKED UP BLUE MARLIN....after a grueling 45 minute battle, Bruce Centner, from Stafford VA released a blue marlin we estimated to be around 350 pounds. A short while later we got hit by the yellowfins, but the only two we hooked were on 30# TLD's out there for mahi, but the guys did great and boated both in the 45-50# class range.