California fisherman Kei Vang was out on the Pacific in early August when he had the kayaking trip of a lifetime. From a 12-foot-9-inch pedal kayak, he hooked a huge striped marlin and fought with it for more than five hours. By the time he was able to grab and cut the line to release the fish, the marlin had already dragged him about 11 miles from where he first hooked it.

Vang, who made a Facebook post about the catch, says Outdoor living that he and two friends left Dana Point in Southern California around 6 a.m. on August 3 and headed out to sea in their kayaks. They were going tuna fishing. Vang says August is usually a good month for tuna on the West Coast, and they headed to a deep canyon where he caught them late last summer. After kayaking about six miles to the spot, they began using heavy equipment to troll live sardine bait.

“There were no baitfish, not even birds,” says Vang. “We trolled for a couple of hours with our heavy gear and saw nothing. We were at about 180 meters depth.”

The anglers continued to troll in their sit-on-top kayaks, and Vang says they were about eight miles off Dana Point by 10 a.m. That’s when he decided to switch to a lighter rod and a slightly smaller reel with 50-pound braid line and 30-pound leader.

Only 10 minutes later, he heard a loud splash behind him. When he looked back, he saw a marlin jumping and trying to throw off the hook. His rod was already bent twice.

“The marlin immediately jumped about eight times and sped away,” says Vang. “It took almost all of the 320 meters of line off my reel. I had to put the brake on and chase the fish to get line back. I pedaled as fast as I could and was close to the marlin again in about 10 minutes.”

He didn’t stay near the fish for long, however. Over the next five hours, the marlin towed Vang and his Hobie Outback more than 10 miles across the Pacific. His friends stayed with him the entire time.

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“They never left me,” Vang says of his fishing buddies. “They made sure I was OK and safe. The marlin never stopped trolling me.”

Vang and his friends were able to track their position using GPS devices mounted on their kayaks. He says they had extra batteries for backup power, as well as VHF radios and other safety equipment.

After about five hours of fighting, the marlin finally got tired and started circling under Vang’s kayak. He and his friends were about 20 miles from shore when he pulled the fish close to his kayak and grabbed the leader, and the three anglers finally got a good look at the swordfish.

“For a while we thought it was a blue marlin…but later we looked at our photos and videos and now we think it was a striped marlin,” says Vang, who estimates the fish to be about 200 pounds. “It was as long as my Hobie (which is almost 13 feet long) and there was no way we could take it home with a harpoon hook. Since it was now after 4 p.m., we decided to cut my line and release the fish.”

The three anglers biked back to shore for a couple of hours, but as darkness fell, Vang’s GPS estimated it would take them another eight or nine hours to get back to Dana Point, so they called another friend with a motorboat, who met them at the 10-mile mark and picked them up and towed their kayaks back to shore.

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“Every kayak angler’s dream is to catch a big fish and take a photo of him holding it up next to his kayak,” says Vang. “That wasn’t possible with my marlin. But I might have a replica made, which might be better than a photo anyway.”