The Fishing Reports: The Crossing

I cannot help but wonder if it is a coincidence that while hobnobbing with Pete and Melanie Mitchell at the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show Wayne and Maria succumbed to temptation, and decided the Bella Maria needed a face lift despite the fact that she is only five years old. This makeover, which will make her look like a new Viking 52 to all but the most discriminating Viking connoisseurs, includes a black mask painted on the eyebrow, mezzanine seating in the cockpit, and a teak and holly sole on the cockpit deck, and will cost not one shilling more than a King's ransom, I am sure. Now, I am not saying that Pete and Melanie are responsible for this sinful extravagance, but if they offer you an apple, do not take a bite.

The first step in the transformation of the Bella Maria from a not so old girl into an almost new vixen was moving her from Destin to the Viking South yard in Riviera Beach, where the renovation magicians reside. To this end, schedules were cleared, forecasts scrutinized, and opportunity awaited. A weather window opened sooner than expected this past weekend, and at 2300 Eastern time on Saturday, the 14th, the Bella Maria , crewed by Captain Wayne, First Mate Maria, and your lowly correspondent, slipped out of East Pass on a moonless night as black as a pirate's heart, bound for Ft. Myers, some 340 nautical miles away.

Wayne decided we would run 22 knots until dawn, at which time we would increase our speed to 30 knots, his theory being that hitting random flotsam or jetsam in the dark at 22 knots would make a smaller hole in the boat than hitting the same object at 30 knots. I thought this reasoning to be similar to pointing out that a 30 story fall is farther than one from 22 stories - undeniably accurate, but cold comfort in the event. Which is not to say I would have jogged along at 10 knots until daylight. On the contrary, I would have done an Admiral Farragaut - full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes, or the logs, or whatever.

Wayne stood the first watch, from 1100 until 0300, and your correspondent managed to stay awake from 0300 until 0700. Maria, who was not assigned a specific watch, made unscheduled, but timely and much appreciated, appearances throughout the night with food and coffee. The night passed uneventfully in perfect weather - a slight breeze out of the north and an insignificant following sea.

Dawn on Sunday was beautiful, but then, as you may have noticed, I am a sucker for sunrises at sea. I think it has something to do with the promise of the new day, a sense of anticipation, of possibility, that grows with the slow retreat of night before the advancing sun. Certainly, the extravagant displays of color that characterize even an average sunset shame the dawn, and there is a softness about the last hour of the day, and a languor about the first hour of the evening, that casts a peculiar spell over women, which means sunsets must be tolerated by men, along with the attendant handholding and sighs. But make no mistake about it: men prefer fecund, flame haired Aurora to the voluptuous decadence of the dying day.

On this particular morning, there was a low wall of gray-blue clouds to the east that almost touched the sea, running from the north to the south, where it joined a gray mountain of cumulus clouds that rose from the horizon. The molten sun poured through holes in the cloud mountain and from beneath the cloud wall, looking for all the world like lava rolling down the slopes of a volcano to set the sea ablaze.

We arrived at Boca Grande Pass at mid-day, and went inside to finish the first leg of our journey in the Intracoastal Waterway. At 0200, we were fueling at the Ft. Myers municipal marina, where we intended to overnight. A thousand gallons of diesel fuel later, at $2.77 a gallon, we were in our slip and drinking to a free Cuba. That night, we dined ashore in an Italian restaurant of sorts, where an unsuspecting maitre d' tutored Wayne on the economics of the restaurant business in the winter and Maria on the finer points of Italian cuisine while I smiled into my napkin.

We were away as soon as we could see to steer on Monday, heading west up the Caloosahatchee River toward the ditch and Lake Okeechobee. This dawn was very different from that of the morning before. The sun rose behind the smoking skeleton of of an industrial eyesore as scores, if not hundreds, of vultures roosted in the branches of nearby trees awaiting whatever grim bounty the light might reveal. Certainly not an invigorating sunrise at sea.

There are five locks and what seemed like five hundred bridges in the Okeechobee Waterway, which stretches across the state from Ft. Myers on the west coast to Stuart on the east coast. There are bridges that raise, bridges that turn, and bridges that just arch their backs to let you pass. The locks are smaller than you might think, but on this day we were the only boat in every lock through which we passed, three west of the Lake to raise you up and two west of the Lake to lower you down. Two feet, four feet and eight feet going up, and, at the St. Lucie Lock, the last lock going east, fourteen feet going down. The drop at St. Lucie was so dramatic because the lock at Port Mayaca on the east side of the Lake was not operational. It was, however, open, and a work barge was moored at each end, although on opposite sides of the lock. I have never been on a boat in a tighter squeeze. Without hesitation, although very slowly, Wayne expertly threaded the fiberglass hulled Bella Maria between a steel barge and a concrete wall with no more than three feet to spare on either side, if that. And he did it twice. I helped by covering my eyes with my hands and thinking positive thoughts.

By late afternoon, we had crossed shallow, coffee colored Lake Okeechobee, descended the St. Lucie Canal, and were tied up at Sailfish Marina in Stuart. We enjoyed another dinner ashore at a seafood restaurant with decent food, which was a good thing, as we had to walk a mile and a half or more to get there because no cabs were available, Stuart either being a busy little town on Monday nights or taxi cab challenged.

The next morning we completed the last leg of the trip to Riviera Beach in under an hour and a half, and I was in a cab on the way to the airport by 0900. On the long, Atlanta leg of my return flights to Destin, I found myself in a middle seat, rather than in my usual, preferred aisle seat, because I had booked late. It is a testament to how perfectly this crossing unfolded that when my seatmates, an older married couple, showed up, the man apologized and asked if I would mind sitting on the aisle so that he and his wife could sit together. May it always be so.

Bisbee Bulletin, No. 8: We Find El Dorado - Sorta

I would like to begin this final Bisbee Bulletin by writing that the early morning auspices for the last day of the tournament portended the capture of a big, money winning marlin. I would like to begin that way, but that was not how it was. I did not feel my customary irrational optimism as we boarded the boat, that sense of unlimited possibility with which I usually begin my fishing days.

This was the day on which the bill for Tropical Storm Rick came due. It was the replacement day for Wednesday when we did not fish, a shortened day with lines out of the water at 1400, a day that we otherwise would have whiled away in waterfront cantinas quaffing Coronas, margaritas, and varied rum presentations in anticipation of the awards banquet that had in fact been cancelled. I was emotionally flat, undoubtedly a breach of faith with my team mates at the very moment when faith above all was required from each of us if we were to prevail. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

That said, the shotgun start was every bit as exciting as the previous day, perhaps more so, because a sailboat probably completing the last leg of the 1200 mile trek south from San Diego, its arrival timed to coincide with first light, rounded Lands End just as the start gun went off. While it was impossible to see much through the haze of spray in the gaps between the racing boats, I imagined a retired couple living their dream, the husband at the helm, the missus below making coffee and toasting a bagel for her captain. He puts the wheel over to port and, as he makes his turn, sees the Drinking Dragon detach itself from the jumble of rock spires at Lands End, and thinks to himself that they have arrived. But what the hell? He just has time to yell below, "Jesus Christ, hold on, Martha!" before sixty internal combustion hounds from hell are upon them, hurling chest high wakes at them from every direction. The sailboat pitched and rolled and yawed as big sportsfishermen roared by within yards of it. It must have been a memorable and unexpected, welcome after a long journey.

Not having the luxury of time to pursue alternate strategies on this abbreviated day, we returned to the scene of our previous successes - the Jaime Bank. Having caught my fish, I retreated from the crowded cockpit to join Mary and Jeff on the bridge, from which vantage point I hoped to see Maria make good on her boast that she could catch a marlin on a 130 with one arm tied behind her back. George and Roy, both of whom had caught a fish during the first two days, also ceded this final opportunity to Wayne and Maria.

As we began the day in second place in the Catch and Release calcutta, I tried to monitor the tournament radio traffic. Tournament rules limited fishing to a forty mile radius from Cabo, and the permitted area was divided on the chart into lettered and numbered grid squares. Whenever a boat hooked up, it had to call in the hookup, the angler, the grid square, and the species. One member selected by the tournament officials from any crew apparently in the money would have to submit to a lie detector test before any money was paid out. In the Bisbee, this lie detector test is not a possibility as it is in most tournaments; it is a certainty because of the large amounts of money involved and past cheating.

Listening to the radio traffic was interesting, and it did nothing to lower my anxiety about us maintaining our place in the standings.

"Tournament Control. Tournament Control. Game On is hooked up."

"This is Tournament Control. Game On, your hookup time is 0932. That's 0932. I need an angler, grid, and species."

"Wait one. We're kinda busy."

"Tournament Control standing by."

"Tournament Control, this is Merlin. We are hooked up in B3. Bob Evers is the angler. Unknown species."

Tournment Control, Game On. We jumped off a small blue in G5. Tom Franklin was the angler."

"Roger, Game On. Lost a blue. Merlin, Tournament Control. Your hookup time is 0941, that is 0941, in B3 with Tom Franklin as the angler. Please advise on species when you can."

"Tournament Control, Merlin. It's a striper. No cigar on this one."

And so it went all morning as I took notes. Only three boats including us had a blue marlin release at the beginning of the day, but as the day wore on qualifying releases mounted. Three. Five. Six. But had any boat released two over the three day period, which would put them in first and move us into third? I did not know, because I could not remember the name of the boat that began the day in third place and that would move to first with another release.

Late in the morning Dolce Vita killed a blue marlin and headed in to weigh it. Not long after, Extraction killed a fish and reported that it was on the way to the scales as well.

At 1215, something ate a Black Bart 1656 Angle on the short left, and line whizzed off the reel, although it slowed quickly. Wayne took the rod and went to the chair. Our hopes soared, but only briefly, as Yogi said matter-of-factly, "Dorado."

"Maybe it's a small blue," Maria said.

"No. Beeg dorado."

And so it was, about a fifty pounder. It came to the boat pretty green given the 30 pounds of drag on the 130, and when Chris and Yogi both stuck it and swung it in the boat, the real fight began. The fish was thrashing and banging away with its tail and thick head. Gaffs flew here and there as the visitors from up north backed away to give Chris and Yogi room to work. Chris went at the dorado with the fish bat, but apparently wasn't packing enough ass to subdue him. Yogi snatched the bat from Chris and went to work, swinging from over his head, up on the balls of his feet. Ten, fifteen blows, no kidding, blood spattering the cockpit. Them Messican dorados, they tough.

As soon as the dorado was beaten into submission, we resumed trolling with time running out. The fish weighed by Dolce Vita had missed 300 pounds by a mile, coming in a 245, and the fish weighed by Extractor barely made it at 305. But as things stood with half an hour to fish, Extractor was sitting on $500,000. Here, fishy, fishy, fishy.

At 1335, we were near where I caught my marlin and not far from a Bertram 31 when it hooked up. We saw the angler struggle to get a bowed rod out of the rod holder, then stagger to the chair with the rod and start winding like a mad man. Between us and the Bertram, about 100 yards away from us and farther from the Bertram, a big blue marlin, 400 pounds at least, rose half way out of the water, shook her head, slung a tuna back in the general direction of the Bertram, and fell back in a great geyser of water and was gone.

The Bertram had hooked - or almost hooked - our fish from yesterday, the one we had returned to find. At least that is what I choose to believe. Our post-mortem was that the angler fished the tuna like a lure, locking up the drag immediately and reeling the natural bait right out of her mouth, rather than dropping back and letting her eat it. But it was no big deal, just a half million dollar mistake.

A minute or two before lines out, I saw Jeff out of the corner of my eye pick up the radio microphone and hold it to his mouth, just so no time would be lost in calling Tournament Control if we hooked up with only seconds to go. But we did not hook up. Tournament Control called lines out at 1400, Jeff put away the microphone and the 2009 Bisbee Black and Blue Marlin Tournament was over.

We did hang on to second place in Catch and Release. Wayne passed the lie detector test, and we pocketed $11,000, which, divided four ways after the Mexican tax of 11%, came to air fare and change. But I am now an officially decorated international angler, which distinction, if not priceless, is certainly worth something, at least to me.

Because of the second day calcutta rolling over to the third day, the boys on the Extractor won about $560,000 overall, while Mi Novia, technically the first place boat, won about $420,000. And that pot of money at the end of the Baja rainbow is what brings people back each year to try, try again.

Bisbee Bulletin No. 7: Today We Went To Sea World

The second day of the Bisbee Black and Blue (Friday, October 23) began with a little more excitement than the first. The majority of the 94 boats in the tournament fleet moved to the right of the start line, which had been sparsely populated on Day 1. Accordingly, there was much to-ing and fro-ing as all the boats gathered behind the start line at 0745. The closer the clock ticked to 0800, the more dense the pack at the right end of the line became. Boats slid up to the line, and then were forced to fall back to keep from going over, others edging into their spot as they gave way. We idled near the line on the extreme right, ironically surrounded by Cabos large and small (Your correspondent is, after all, a Cabo captain.), including a 50 foot semi-custom Cabo Express just a few yards away on the port side that Chris said was very fast.

At three minutes out, Maria put Ride of the Valkyries on the sound system and maxed out the volume. At one minute to go, a nearby boat added the "Charge' bugle call to the cacophony. From the cockpit, I saw Jeff on the bridge raise his left hand, fingers splayed, counting off the last five seconds. Mary, facing aft in the mate's chair, feet on the rail, smiled down and gave me a thumb's up. I saw Jeff push the throttles to the pins and felt the boat surge ahead before I heard the shot from the start boat and saw the red flare arc through the sky. Then all hell broke loose.

Tightly packed boats jumping up on plane rocked in each others wakes, slewed too close to one another, fell away, and then were pushed back together by the wakes of bigger, faster boats passing them. The Carpe Diem cruises at about 24 knots, and its top speed probably is close to 27, which is plenty good enough, but it was by no means the fleetest in this fleet. The big Cabo Express to port blew our doors off, pulling away like we were dragging our anchor. To starboard, first one custom built Carolina boat, then another, streaked by us as a third bore down astern in the flat, center portion of our wake. These few moments of barely controlled chaos etched another indelible fishing memory into my brain. And as for the Ride of the Valkyries, still booming over our cockpit speakers as the boats around us fanned out, I have smelled napalm in the morning like Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, and I have smelled marine diesel smoke in the morning like most of you, and I much prefer the latter.

The seas on Day 2 were the best of the tournament - big, well spaced swells with little chop. But the fishing continued to be slow, probably a legacy of Tropical Storm Rick. A measure of how slow the fishing was is that we began the day in second place in the Catch and Release calcutta with one blue marlin release (having released the second qualifying marlin on Day 1) and remained there all day as other boats caught and released fish, but none more than one. And no one caught a fish large enough to weigh.

On our run out, we saw a large sea turtle, not remarkable in itself, but a harbinger of things to come. At about mid-day, we came upon acres of dolphin, including spinner dolphins, with which I was not familiar. Spinner dolphin are small, and their dorsal fins lean forward instead of aft. This peculiarity ostensibly gives them 5he ability to spin on a dime when chasing prey, at least according to Chris, hence their names.

In the environs of Cabo San Lucas the presence of dolphin also sometimes seems to be associated with the presence of tuna, although this is certainly not the case with dolphin in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. I say this because in response to our dolphin encounter we brought in all the trolling rods, and ran to get ahead of the traveling schools. There were so many dolphin that I was reminded of Santiago's dolphin dream in The Old Man and the Sea. Once we were ahead of them, the boat slowed and Chris began to throw live sardines (Remember the pangas ghosting about the marina in the pre-dawn darkness selling sardines?) out behind the boat like confetti in copious quantities while George and I trolled little feathers on bait rods, our mission being to catch tuna for live baiting. Before I could begin to doubt that this could possibly work, we were both hooked up, and, in a trice, two eight to ten pound yellowfins were in the tuna tubes, and the boat was again up and running toward the edge of the Jaime Bank just a few miles away.

When Jeff pulled back the throttles, Chris and Yogi went immediately to work bridling the tunas. Chris held the leader and hook, with the rigging floss already clove hitched to the hook. Yogi held the tuna upside down in his left arm like a football to calm it, and passed the rigging needle with the floss loop through the tuna's eye sockets over his eyes, dropped the loop over the hook, wound the hook snug, tucked the hook back underneath the floss to prevent it from unwinding, and each tuna was in the water before he knew he had been out of the water.

We fished the two tuna way long from the outriggers on 130s in the arms of the fighting chair. Jeff bumped the boat along, slow trolling. The tuna were generally well behaved, but now and again one or both would swim the wrong way, and we would have to switch the rods. Yogi could see them going awry before they tangled, a visual skill far exceeding the capabilities of my own parlous eyesight, as the lines in the water looked exactly the same to me when Yogi was satisfied as they did when he was muttering to himself in Spanish and commanding the rearrangement of the rods in Spanglish.

At one point, Yogi was gently hand lining in one of the tuna to check his vital signs, when we had another Sea World visitation. He began to say, "Seeel! Seeel!" and hand line faster.

Jeff shouted "Hurry, Yogi, hurry!" from the bridge, and I saw Mary stand up and stare down into the water behind the boat.

I looked inquiringly at Chris. "What?"

"Seal."

"Seal?"

"Yes, seal." He pointed down.

And sure enough, a very big seal was racing up out of the cobalt blue depths of the Pacific in pursuit of our tuna, which was saved by Yogi in the nick of time, who stashed it in the tuna tube, and then similarly rescued the other tuna. We moved the boat some distance to elude our whiskered nemesis, and resumed live baiting.

But to no avail. So, after a couple of hours, we reverted to trolling. There still were no marlin, but there were more wonders to behold, such as a large pod of pilot whales. I have seen pilot whales before, but infrequently, and singly or in pairs. This was, to quote my Gunnery Sergeant, a shit pot full of'em, frolicking, paralleling the boat, and generally enlivening a dull afternoon.

And the whales had no sooner departed than a large hammerhead shark, maybe eight feet long, appeared and leisurely circled the boat, cocking one eye or the other at each of us in turn, presumably waiting for someone to fall out of the cockpit or off the bridge. This was another irony, because I am not only the captain of a Cabo, but the captain of a Cabo named Hammerhead. Surely this was an omen of good things to come.

Well, to quote my two year old grand daughter, Daisy, "No way, Poopy Head." There would be no brass ring for the Bisbee Bunch this day.

At around 4 PM, an hour before lines out, we did, however, have a major knock down on the left short. Chris suddenly yelled, "Billfish! Billfish! Left short!" I turned too late to see the fish, but I saw the boil in the water and heard the rubber band on the tag line go, or at least I think I did, which is almost the same thing as actually hearing it, at least when I am telling the story. Line sang off the reel, but in the few seconds it took Roy to get to the rod, it stopped. The fish had not hooked up. Chris and Yogi said the marlin came in wagging her bill, which was as big as a man's arm, before slapping the lure off the tag line. They estimated she weighed 400 pounds or more. when we checked the lure. the leader was badly scuffed for three to four feet above the hook. Maybe the marlin bill wrapped when she missed the lure, turned away, pulled some drag, and then came unwound. The eyewitness testimony and the physical evidence on the leader supported this hypothesis and provided a plan for the last, abbreviated day of the tournament.

This knockdown had come on the south end of the Jaime Bank within a mile or two of where we had caught both the striper and the blue the day before. We would come back tomorrow and collect this Mexican marlin, or another like it, and our $500,000 in Aztec gold.

Bisbee Bulletin, No. 6: Meeting The Man In The Blue Suit

Bisbee Black and Blue Tournament days began with the drive down in darkness from our rented mountain aerie in Pedregal, all eight of us sitting shoulder to shoulder in our rented van, not talking that much, as banter does not seem to flourish during the early morning hours. As we descended through the switch backs in the steep cobble stone road that is the only way in and out of Pedregal, the lights of the city and the harbor appeared and disappeared in a visual tease that heightened the anticipation of the day ahead.

When we arrived at the marina, outboard powered pangas were gliding up and down between the piers, selling small live sardines to the tournament boats for use as chum for tuna that would be used in turn as live baits for marlin. The crew of the Carpe Diem loaded the live well, hope springing eternal. As we prepared to depart, other boats were slipping out of their berths all around us, aglow with the soft red and green of their running lights forward and the brilliant white of their spreader lights aft. I was struck by how quiet it was. Despite the outboards of the pangas, the big diesels engines of the boats, and the chatter of anglers and crews, I recall little if any noise, or almost any sound at all, really. It was as if the darkness was a muffler, a solemn cloak of silence that tempered and dignified the otherwise ridiculously phallic display of rods and reels that bristled in every cockpit.

As we reached the harbor mouth, we joined dozens of boats milling around the quay on which the Port Captain's command post stood. Each boat had to hand over its documentation to the waiting officials and receive a three day dispatch for the tournament. This exchange was effected by the mate on the bow and the officer on the quay, with the fiberglass boat only a few feet from the concrete quay. Yet, a gaggle of sixty foot sportfishing boats alternately crowded in and sidled away like a crowd of children at an ice cream truck.

By the time we exited the harbor, the sun was rising. To kill time before the 0800 start, we trolled feathers on bait rods and caught two small dolphin - called dorado west of the Mississippi - and stuck them head down into the tuna tubes for possible use as live baits later. But we were really just waiting, and our excitement mounted as the clock ticked toward the shotgun start for the day's fishing.

The start line was two miles long and ran from left to right, NE to SW, ending on the right at Land's End, a magnificent jumble of rock formations that rise at the junction of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez at the tip of the Baja Peninsula. These rocky spires include the Drinking Dragon (Study the left side of the arch in this picture.) and Scooby Doo. If at first you do not see them, stand out in the hot sun drinking Coronas all day, and then look again.

All boats had to be behind the start line by 0745 or be disqualified. On this first day, most of the boats clustered on the left end of the line, intending to make the run up the Sea of Cortez to the Gordo Banks, where they believed they would find calmer seas in the aftermath of the recently departed Tropical Storm Rick. The strategic planners on the Carpe Diem took a contrarian view ,and we waited with the minority on the right, our strategy being to run north to the Golden Gate ( a sea mount), work it, and then troll west toward what we hoped would be a temperature break, along which we would turn south toward the Jaime Bank.

I will not recount the first day's shotgun start in this Bisbee Bulletin, but will save a description of the start for the next Bisbee Bulletin, when almost the entire fleet was hugging Land's End, having come to appreciate the savvy of the piscatorial pros on the Carpe Diem, that and the fact that no one caught squat on the Gordos the first day.

The swells on the Pacific side were fairly large - six or seven feet - with a wind driven chop on top, but they were well spaced, and, all in all, conditions were agreeable unless we were dead bang broadside in the trough, a circumstance that Captain Jeff assiduously avoided. Fishing was slow. It was not until 1030 that a smallish dorado hit a St. Thomas Prowler on the right short. Roy boated him in short order and with good form before the dorado had recovered from what must have been the considerable shock of coming tight on 20 pounds of drag on a 130 reel with a double hook set in his mouth.

As we neared the north end of the Jaime Bank, Maria called out that she saw dolphins to starboard. Then, she cried, "A bill! I saw a bill." Jaded after five hours of nothing but a dinky dorado, and aware of Maria's penchant for margaritas, one could almost hear the collective unspoken "Yeah, right." when Captain Jeff shouted, "Left Teaser! Left teaser!" Yogi, the first mate, chimed in almost simultaneously in his best English. "Beelfeesh! Beelfeesh!" And sure enough, there was a boil of water and a slashing bill behind the left teaser. Never underestimate the sensory sharpening powers of a few margaritas.

Your correspondent was standing on the right side of the cockpit, and he grabbed the pitch bait, which was a rainbow runner on a straight rod 80, and headed for the left corner, intending to cover himself in tournament glory. But Jeff saw me actually headed for ignominy and ridicule, and saved me by calling down from the bridge, "No, no. Don"t pitch to him. It's a sailfish." (Remember, nothing matters in the Bisbee Black and Blue Marlin Tournament but black and blue marlin.) I sheepishly returned the pitch bait to its rightful position. While I was doing so, the sail fish disappeared, but then returned after a brief hiatus to resume its pummeling of the squid chain teaser.

But not for long. The sailfish sheared off and disappeared as from out of nowhere a striped marlin charged the teaser from behind. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen fishing offshore. The striper's pec fins were flared, and they and the vertical tiger stripes on his sides were lit up a neon blue. He was on the teaser in a flick of his tail. Then he saw the bogeye lure on the 130 in the left corner smoking through the water just ahead of and inboard of the teaser. On he came, paused, glided to one side of the lure and then the other to make sure it appealed to him, and then pounced, right in front of all of us, not thirty yards away.

The reel clicker keened, and the rod bowed. "Fish on! Fish on!"

George, whose responsibilities included the left corner rod at that time, went to the rod, took it from the rod holder, carried it to the chair, placed it in the gimble, hooked the bucket seat straps to the reel, pushed the drag to 30 pounds (We were fishing the 130s at 18 to 20 pounds of drag so that we could get them out of the rod holders without having to adjust the drag in the first excitement of a bite.), and awaited the end of the fish's initial run. Although line was still going out, Yogi began what seems to be his incantation for all occasions: "Reel! Reel! Reel!" Slack line is, of course, anathema when trying to catch a big fish, and it is clear that Yogi's psyche has been scarred over the years by countless pilgrims who failed to reel when they should have, so he chants "Reel! Reel! Reel!" regardless of the circumstances. Doesn't hurt, I guess, even when it doesn't do any good.

Although this was a nice sized striped marlin - a hundred pounds or more - it was no match for 30 pounds of drag and a 130 reel on stiff backed rod, so George brought him to the boat for release after a relatively brief tussle.

We continued on to work around the south end of the Jaime Bank. At 1500, I relieved Wayne as the sentinel standing watch over the three 130s on the left side of the cockpit. At 1510, I was standing next to the left long, to which we had moved the St. Thomas Prowler from the right short. The rod was in the rear rod holder of the chair arm. I heard an outrigger clip pop with a sharp crack, followed by the staccato wail of a reel clicker under extreme duress. Yogi was yelling, "Feesh on! Feesh on!" Time slowed. Sounds slurred. I knew people were on the move around me, but it was more of an impression than an observation. Fish on. But where? I looked down and saw line rapidly melting off the whirling reel of the 130 just inches from where my hand rested on the chair arm. This fish was no sail, no striper.

The moment I had prayed for, and had dreaded, had arrived. I was the angler on a big fish in a big money tournament with a significant portion of that small universe of people in the world whose good opinion I value looking on.

"Now," I said to my self. "Move." Time resumed its quick march and sound flooded back with unusual clarity. Shouts of "Clear! Clear! Clear!" rose around me. The reels on the rods being cleared around me chattered in unison as George, Chris, Yogi, and Wayne reeled furiously without bothering to thumb off the clickers. I heard the the salon door bang open, and those inside poured out, cameras in hand. Mary was on the bridge with Jeff.

I already had both hands on the rod when I heard Jeff shouting, "Go to the Chair! Go to the chair!" Which I did, seating the rod in the gimble without difficulty, getting into the bucket seat, and snapping the bucket straps to the reel. I pushed the drag forward to 30 pounds and thumbed off the clicker. I had taken my time, been careful, acted deliberately, but the fish was still running. Finally, he slowed. Then he stopped.

I began to sliding forward in the bucket on the chair seat, letting the fish pull the rod down, bending my legs, reeling as I went, then pushing back against the foot rest until my legs straightened. Then again. Pump up, reel down. Pump up, reel down. The fish was very heavy, but the line angled straight out behind the boat; he was fighting up, not down, which was a wonderful thing. Before long, I felt a little short of breath, which annoyed me. Was I flagging already, or was I just excited? I regretted not being in better shape. I worried that the worst of all possibilities might become reality, that the fish would beat me not because I made an error or was unlucky, but because I was weak. Pump up, reel down. Pump up, reel down. "Take it easy. No hurry," Jeff would say from above from time to time, as if I had the ability to horse this fish around.

There was something wrong with my leverage. I wasn't comfortable. The bucket straps seemed too long. George was driving the chair, and Wayne was at my side. "Can you tighten the bucket straps, please," I asked. They could not touch the rod, reel, or line, but they could tighten the straps. They tried, but it was too difficult to do with the strain on the rod. Worse, the left strap came out of the buckle altogether for a moment, and I faced the disastrous prospect of having to fight this fish with my left arm alone rather than with both my legs, but after some intense effort and some uncharacteristic cussing, Wayne managed to re-thread the strap in the buckle, and I decided the length was just fine after all.

The fish had not broached once since striking, but I expected to see him soon. I had most of the line back on the reel, so much that I thought I might see the Bimini knot on the double line before long. He was coming much easier, not so heavy. Then I pushed back with my legs, and line came off the reel. Disbelieving, I watched the reel continue to turn, slowly at first, then faster, and faster, and faster. Thirty pounds of drag on a 130 Tiagra reel mounted on an Ian Miller rod, stiff as a broom handle, and line was screaming off in a second blistering run. One hundred yards. Two hundred yards. In seconds.

"Wayne, we are going to have to go after him," I said.

"No, it's alright. There is plenty of line," he responded.

Three hundred yards. Four hundred yards. "Jeff, go back slowly," Wayne called up to the bridge. The boat began to back on one engine. A light spray came over the transom, wetting me, cooling me. Five hundred yards. The spinning reel slowed.

"There he is! There he is!" Mary cried from the bridge, pointing aft and far to the left. And there he was indeed, five hundred yards out on the starboard quarter, tail walking, falling back in a geyser of spray, tail walking again, greyhounding, five, six, seven times. (Maria took the picture at left of him in mid-air.) Everyone was shouting. at once. "Blue marlin! Blue marlin." "Look at'im go!" "Look! Look!"

I did look, and I saw a magnificent animal fighting desperately with apparently inexhaustible strength. But then I looked down. The reel had stopped turning.

Where was Yogi when I needed him to tell me to reel, reel, reel. Pump up, reel down. Pump up, reel down. He was still heavy at first, but soon he came more easily. Patiently, methodically, I pulled him to the boat. The double line came out of the water, and I got the wind-on on the reel. Yogi leadered him in the left corner, and in one final burst of defiance this wonderful fish leaped along the transom, shaking his head and pulling Yogi across into the right corner. But he was well hooked, very tired, and soon under control.

But did he weigh the minimum 300 pounds that would enable us to kill him and weigh him without penalty? Was he a $250,000 fish, the amount of the daily calcuttas we were in? I thought he was surprisingly small for the fight he had made. Later, Jeff and Wayne said that he was a male. It is their contention that the male blue marlin in the 250 to 350 pound range are the real athletes of the species, and, pound for pound, are much harder fighters than the much bigger females. I want to believe this, so that I can continue to believe that I could bring a 600 pounder to the boat.

But would this one measure 100 inches from his lower jaw to the fork of his tail, an indication that he might make the minimum weight? Thus began what shall forever be known in annals of The Fishing Reports as The Measuring Madness. I cannot guess how long we cruised along, dragging this blue clad champion with us as we calculated, dithered, and re-calculated. I can easily believe that it takes a village to raise a child, because if you count the heads and asses in the photo at right you can clearly see it takes at least seven people just to measure a marlin.

When it was all said and done, the consensus conclusion of the more experienced among us was that this fish was about 90 inches long and might weigh as much as 280 or as little as 260, but would not make 300. So, we photographed him for the Tag and Release calcutta, and released him.

For a few agonizing moments, he lay on his side, and I feared we had killed him for naught, but then he flicked his tail, righted himself, and with another flick disappeared into the depths of the Pacific from which he had providentially come to enrich my life.

And it proved to be just as well that he was not 100 inches long and a few pounds over 300, because while I was fighting him the Mi Novia was on the way to the scales with a fish that weighed 375 pounds. The death of my fish would have been pointless, as the events of the next two days would demonstrate.

As most of you know, a good day fishing offshore is one at the end of which you return in the same boat in which you left and no one requires professional medical attention when you arrive. A great day fishing offshore is a good day during which you catch fish. Ninety-three boats in the 2009 Bisbee Black and Blue had either a good day or a great day on this first day of the tournament. But 94 boats crossed the starting line. On its run north to the Gordo Banks, the Bottom Line, a 52 foot Hatteras, had an engine room fire that could not be controlled, probably the result of a fuel leak that sprayed onto the turbines. Before the Bottom Line burned to the water line and sank twenty nautical miles offshore in the Sea of Cortez, the Sneaky Pete, also running north to the Gordos, heard and answered the Bottom Line's distress call, and took off those aboard in a bow to bow transfer.

By the next morning 0800, the anglers from the Bottom Line had chartered the Fearless, which was fighting for position at the starting line in the shadow of the the Drinking Dragon.


I love fishing.

Bisbee Bulletin No. 5, Hobnobbing With A Winner

Today was a sunny, lazy, stark contrast to our our Cabo stay to date. We set the drags on the reels one more time and hung out on the dock chewing the rag with the other crews. During a late lunch, Miss Mary and J.R. were serenaded with "Pretty Woman," which, as you can see, is only right, and in an auspicious omen for the tournament, I met and lunched with a new friend, whose name turned out to be Champion.

Now we are going to hit the hot tub. Then I am going to smoke a real Cuban cigar (Montecristo No. 2) and drink no more than two Cuba Libres, followed by a light supper and early to bed. May The Force be with us during the next three days.

Bisbee Bulletin, No.4: Treading Water, And I'm Not Kidding

The weather on Tuesday - and weather has been the story in Cabo San Lucas so far - was intermittent rain the day long and blustery wind in the late afternoon. It was more like a winter front passing through Destin than tropical storm conditions at the edge of the Pacific on the periphery of North America, although outside the harbor, as seen from high on the hill to which clings the Pedregal development where the Messican Mansion we are renting is located, some very handsome waves were hard at work sculpting the rock formations below.

In the morning, Wayne, George, and I went down to the Carpe Diem, where we met Captain Jeff, First Mate Yogi, and Second Mate Chris. Captain Jeff is a Norte Americano who came fishing here twenty years ago and forgot to go home. He is married to a Mexican woman, and the lean, swarthy, nineteen year old Chris is the fruit of this union. Yogi is a third world deck hand from central casting - stocky, amiable, and, above all, professional. If I was Ernest Hemingway, and the Carpe Diem was the Pilar, then Yogi would be a well fed Gregorio Fuentes.

Wayne, George, and I re-rigged from soup to nuts a dozen marlin lures Wayne brought with him, including new hook sets as well as new leaders, while Yogi and Chris put new wind-on leaders on the reels. We are going to fish six 130 pound reels on bent butt rods and one straight rod 80 pound outfit for the long center line. I have, of course, seen 130 pound rods and reels, but I have not fished them before. They are huge, and the drags are set at between 32 and 35 pounds. Just getting one out of the rod holder and to the chair with a big marlin on should be an adventure for a poorly conditioned old man like myself. And, by their own admission, no women need apply. Maria, who can handle an 80 and expects there to be a number of them in the spread, is going to be fried when she sees the six 130s, but Wayne and I see no reason to provoke her by telling her in advance.

It turned out Jeff has some horse ballyhoo caught locally in his freezer, so we walked over to Minerva's, the Cabo offshore fishing tackle store of choice, where Minerva herself was behind the counter, to buy the makings for ballyhoo rigs - copper wire, 10/0 hooks, 300 pound leader, and sleeves. Folks in these parts either live bait (the Carpe Diem is equipped with tuna tubes) or lure fish; dragging dead natural bait is not unknown, but it is deemed an exotic practice.

We met the Lady Bisbees and Roy for lunch at the Baha Cantina, which is on the marina quay.
The service was good, as was the food, and the ambience was perfectly pitched to the expectations of fishing turistas - rough wooden floor, tables and chairs, ceiling fans, circular bar, a sleeping dog here and there, the patter of a foreign tongue, and hundreds of sportfishing boats in the marina just beyond the verandah.

But the town is a wreck. It seems some major transportation improvements are in train, because the streets are torn up to a fare thee well, with orange tape and ubiquitous traffic cones so arranged as to ensure that you will get lost in your rented van, or at least be hopelessly immoblized at the end of a blockaded street, wedged between a back hoe and a dump truck and hemmed in by a delivery van that pulls up behind you and starts to unload before you can escape.

Then add water. The Baja is an arid corner of the world unaccustomed to rain, and, as a result, drainage is a concept that eludes the Cabo city fathers. Mud and water is so prevalent as to be unavoidable. The streets run with water four inches deep, the construction potholes that are more like bomb craters are latte colored lakes, and the shop keepers sweep water out of their stores into the street. Many high maintenance gringas with sleek sandles and freshly pedicured and painted toe nails, including the Lady Bisbees, have had to reconcile themselves to mud between their toes. Now that the rain has ceased, we are all looking forward to some good, old fashioned Messican dust in our teeth.

The captains' meeting took place at 6 PM in the center of the mall that wraps around the west and north side of the giant marina. (The contrast here between foreign private investment and indigenous resources, whether private or public, is striking.) The crews and anglers from some 80 plus boats were there, including a first ever Japanese entry. Sponsor booths encirled the crowd. Among them was a booth full of Russians giving away some kind of vodka, one of whom was improbably wearing a Nazi helmet. And then there were the busty, dusky, raven haired Latina wenches who I feel certain have as much to do with the allure of Cabo for American fishermen as the fish - the Corona girls in purple bandeau dresses, the Ujena girls in black short shorts and halter tops, and the Baha Cantina girls in red bikinis, all in high, high heels, swaying to the background music.

The tournament will begin on Thursday and has been extended through Saturday. All boats (81 as of last night, down from 170 plus three years ago) must be behind the start line by 0745 each day for the 0800 shotgun start. Lines must be out of the water by 5 PM on Thursday and Friday, and by 2 PM on Saturday. Total prize money as of last night was $1.9 million, and is expected to top $2 million. As a newcomer to this tournament, I am prepared to share this money with others; I do not want to be thought greedy or impolite.

Following the captain's meeting we retired to Ruth's Chris in the mall, where we sat at the bar wearing the Bisbee t-shirts Wayne and Maria had made for us and the tournament visors George and J.R. provided for the team. We might have looked odd had it not been for the fact that the tables were occupied by similarly attired teams from the Game On, Capella, Miss B Haven, and other boats. Weathered by sun and wind and marinated in tequila, the competition is a gnarly looking lot.

We did not stay out late drinking, if for no other reason that some of the Bisbee Bunch had started early. In fact, I was in bed by 9 PM, nursing my new goiter - which, by the way, is much improved this morning - and was still awake when I heard Betty fall down the spiral marble stairs connecting the living area to the bedroom level. Mary reported to me that Betty hit her head and elbow pretty hard, and that Wayne had picked her up and carried her to her room as if she were a child, his bad back notwithstanding. But no ambulance was called, so I went to sleep.

Today is Tournament Eve, and I am beginning to get excited.

Bisbee Bulletin, No. 3, You Do Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows

Today began in pre-dawn darkness with thunder, lightning, heavy rain, and hurricane mania. First, we learned the harbor was closed, and then we learned that the sliding glass doors to the deck leak. Fearful of at least a Cat 2 and an accompanying power loss, we stuffed the freezer full of ice, arranged for two large coolers of ice to be delivered, and headed for Costco, where we spent $1013 on more food, water, liquor, flashlights and batteries, etc., in addition to the $600 we spent yesterday. We are ready for a full tilt boogie Messican huracan, so, because we are ready, there were will be none. It now looks as if Rick will pass slightly to the south of us on Wednesday as a Tropical Storm. Winds here will not exceed 50 knots, and probably will be less.

There is an on-line vote underway among tournament participants whether to extend the tournament and fish on Saturday if we do not get out Thursday. If we do not get out Thursday and a Saturday extension is not approved, then we will have a nerve wracking one day tournament on Friday and fun fish on Saturday. In any event, we are going to be able to fish, which is why we came.

But until then, it is vacation time. Lunch. Nap. Hot tub. Happy hour. Dinner. Sleep. Repeat. (We will go the the boat in the morning to rig, but that will be after breakfast and before lunch and our siesta.) This photo is a view from the hot tub looking north, away from the sea. The lone Apache scout who heralds a blood thirsty raid by Geronimo's renegade band of Chiricahuas could appear on the ridgeline at any moment.

The bottom line is that it looks as if pressing on in the face of problematic weather forecasts may work out for us this time, and, hopefully, even pay off. I commend to the more timid among you the wisdom of Cervantes, who wrote, "Faint heart ne'er fair lady won.", and the strategic advice of Frederick the Great: "L'audace. Encore, l'audace. Toujours, l'audace."

Bisbee Bulletin, No. 2: On The Ground - Ground Zero, That Is

Today was largely uneventful, which is a good thing when you are traveling. Wayne, Maria, George, J.R., Mary, and I left Destin - actually, Ft. Walton - at zero dark thirty, ate a greasy breakfast in Houston, and landed in Cabo San Lucas, or actually at an airport reasonably close to it, at about noon local time.

We were sailing through customs when the drug sniffing dog locked up in a point at Maria's carry on. This brought several Federal Police to the scene, and, after a diligent search, it was discovered that Maria had an open container of peanuts in her bag. We were all having quite a bit of fun at Maria's expense when the dog made another circuit and locked in on Mary's carry on, which , after another search by the Federales, turned out to contain oatmeal cookies. I cannot say for sure whether you could smuggle an ounce of vacation weed into Cabo San Lucas (Why would you need to do so?), but I am fairly certain that you could not slip in a single Fig Newton.

Betty and Roy flew in from Los Angeles about an hour after we arrived. It was direct flight, but Roy's bag nevertheless did not make it because it was detained by US Customs in LA until after their flight had departed and will not arrive until tomorrow, a curious occurence that indicates that Roy, despite his reticence, may be a dangerous man who bears watching.

The house we have rented - Descansa - would make a sybarite blush. With seven bedrooms, an infinity pool overlooking the Pacific, billiards table, flat screen TVs in every room, etc., it makes me feel just a little guilty when I see the poor Mexican laborers slaving away in the sun on improvements to the highway to the homes of the rich folks who literally live high on the hill. But only a little.

And, yes, there is a hurricane, Ricky Ricardo by name, in the offing. It looks as if it will come through our front door as a Category 1 or 2 on Tuesday night and Wednesday. But we spent $600 in the Super Walmart this afternoon without buying anything of nutritional value, so we should have enough alcohol, mixer, wine, water, Cheetos, and Cuban cigars to see us through. But who knows?

It is our intent to fish Monday on the Pacific side, but the rumor in the marina is that the Mexican government will close the harbor some time tonight. Wednesday, the first day of the tournament, undoubtedly will be a bust as it looks like it will be Hurricane Day, but perhaps we can fish the last two days of the tournament - Thursday and Friday - behind the hurricance. Or not.

Late this afternoon, we visited our yatchet, the Carpe Diem, a 61 foot Buddy Davis, to load some supplies and to chat with the captain. The boat is a beautiful ride, and the captain seems very capable, so I am hopeful of some success if we can just get out.

We ate dinner tonight at Lorenzillos, where the food was excellent and the service better. There were numerous toasts requiring much wine, but there were no fisticufffs with the wait staff, or even complaints by other patrons of loud and profane raillery, which just goes to show you how tolerant folks are south of the Border.

Now if we can only get a bit of rest tonight and slip out of the harbor in the morning before the Devil knows we're gone.

The Skunk Left Some Stink In The Boat

If you only read The Fishing Reports to learn of the latest feats of derring-do by the Merry Mariners of East Pass Marina, then you need read no further, for yesterday was what is known in the understated argot of offshore fishing as a slow day. A very slow day. We caught one barracuda that would have been a weehoo if it had been a wahoo and a blackfin tuna that went ten pounds, maybe.

If, on the other hand, you read The Fishing Reports for reasons other than glorying vicariously in bloody duels at gaffe's point with edible pelagic predators or the spectacle of old men not far from their dotage clinging desperately to a monofilament leader on the other end of which is a leaping billfish, then read on.

As the acknowledged leader of the Bisbee Bunch, it has been Wayne Lewis' goal to fish as often as possible with as many of the Bunch as possible in preparation for the upcoming Bisbee Black and Blue Marlin Tournament in Cabo San Lucas, where for a week we will dwell among the noble descendants of Cortes and Montezuma while testing our mettle in piscatorial battle against the dreadnoughts of California jillionaires crewed by the ruthless progeny of John C. Fremont and William Randolph Hearst. So off we went yesterday, convinced of the wisdom of Marshal Zhukov's training dictum that the more an army sweats in peace the less it bleeds in war.

The fishing platform of choice was Wayne's Bella Maria. The ship's complement were Wayne Lewis and Maria Falduto, George Hendricks, me, my Mary, and Zeke Frye, Wayne's usual mate. The forecast was NE winds 10 to 15 knots, veering into the SW in the afternoon, seas 1 to 2 feet. I know this will shock you, but the forecast was wrong once more. Although things calmed down a bit in the afternoon, all morning the waves were 3 to 4, and occasionally taller. It was four, four, four, thr..., no, damn it, five.

But the sunrise running out was beautiful, as it almost always is. This particular morning it was a blood red sun pushing through blue clouds banks in the distance and staining the under bellies of mackerel clouds nearer at hand rose and vanilla. At one point the sun, splashing shimmering red onto the surface of the sea out of which it was climbing, was hemmed in at the mid-point on both sides by obdurate clouds; it looked like a tomato hued mushroom, which was an effect I do not recall having seen previously .

There was no information available to us indicating that one place to fish was better than another - the data on altimetry and water color were uninspiring everywhere we might have gone on a day trip, and the reports from those who had been offshore recently were discouraging, so we decided somewhat arbitrarily to head south for the Knuckle and then troll down sea along the Edge toward the Nipple. And that is what we did.

We ran the standard Bella Maria spread: two big teasers, two big marlin lures fished off the tip of rods in the aft corners of the cockpit, medium sized lures on the short lines, and skirted ballyhoo on the long lines and the center line. We later switched out the big lures on the corners for diving plugs rigged on wire, reluctantly conceding that we were more likely to encounter wahoo than marlin, a concession that undoubtedly pained Wayne.

One novelty was that we used artificial ballyhoo. I had argued to Wayne that we should fish each time as if we were fishing in a tournament, and because all US tournaments require circle hooks with natural bait, we should fish with circle hooks if we use natural bait. He agreed in principle with my argument, but developed a facial tic and a stammer at the very idea of using circle hooks. Thus, the artificial ballyhoo, which, I might add, look good and run better than they look.

After a couple hours of a lot of nothing, I heard Wayne talking on the radio to the Monkey Man, who was farther west, near the Nipple, where he said the water color was more promising. The Monkey Man is the Monkey Man for two reasons. First, a few years back his wife owned a monkey that bit him with painful regularity on the neck, shoulders, and arms, leaving him looking like he had been in a hickey giving contest with an Amazon who could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. And, second, because he is of average height, with a smallish head, narrow, rounded shoulders, thinning hair combed straight back, and a wispy moustache and beard, he has a decidedly simian appearance, although I will admit that I have not seen all that many monkeys chain smoking cigarettes.

I was in doubt about the wisdom of relying on a man who was held in thrall by a monkey, and whose boat, a poorly maintained 50 something foot Southern Cross named the Outrageous, known throughout the northeastern Gulf as a fish raiser back in the days before the Monkey Man bought it, hardly ever leaves the slip. In fact, the last time I saw it underway was during Hurricane Ivan in'04.

I had taken the Hammerhead and followed the Mitchell fleet to "the ditch" between Choctahatchee Bay and Panama City to ride out the storm. I spent the afternoon sticking two bow anchors and one stern anchor, and tying off to a tree onshore. I was in the process of deploying my second stern anchor in my nine and a half foot Zodiac dinghy when the Outrageous appeared, probably making ten knots in what is, in effect, a canal not more than seventy five yards wide, a canal that was crowded that day with boats seeking shelter from Ivan. I was standing up in the dinghy (I cannot remember why, as this was a dumb thing to do.) trying to maintain my balance while holding a 45 pound Danforth anchor with 30 feet of 5/16 inch chain attached, when I heard the rumble of diesel engines. I looked up; the Monkey Man waved from the bridge as the Outrageous passed; his wake hit my dinghy; and head first into the water I went, firmly attached to an anchor.

It actually took me longer than it should have to realize that it would be a good idea to turn loose of the anchor. Once I did so, I kicked back to the surface, and managed to swim down my dinghy, which had drifted down tide with the outboard motor idling. I huffed and puffed and rolled in over he side no worse for the wear, other than that I was missing a new leather flip flop. When I made my way back to the Hammerhead, tied off the dinghy to the stern, and climbed into the cockpit soaking wet and covered in mud, Mary, who had been below when I had my little adventure, looked me up and down and asked, "Why are you wearing one flip flop?"

So, as I said, I had my doubts about relying on the Monkey Man, but conditions could not be worse at the Nipple than at the Knuckle, so off we went. And conditions were no worse. Nor were they any better. But we persevered. At 1330, we had a mystery bite, or bites, probably either a swarm of blackfin tuna or a surly marlin. Bang. Bang. Bang. The short right, the long right, and the center line were knocked out of the clips in rapid succession by the mystery biter. Immediately after it was clear that no fish had been hooked despite repeated drop backs and fast reeling, we went to work getting the lines back into the clips.

Zeke held the center line rod and reel up over his head in order for Wayne up on the bridge to put the line back in the fly pole clip. Wayne had the line in his hand, but Zeke had not yet taken the reel drag out of gear, when the mystery biter struck again. The line was snatched from Wayne's hand and came tight against the drag, whipping the rod tip down and forcing the rod butt up, where it dug into Zeke's bare chest . For a moment, I though he might lose the rod and reel overboard, but he thumbed off the drag and put the reel into free spool to relieve the pressure, saving the rod and reel but creating a monster back lash. And the mystery biter did not hook up this time either, which was probably just as well, given the backlash.

The best parts of the day were the vittles, which added to Maria's well deserved reputation for fine food prepared in difficult circumstances. The eating began with the usual BLTs and assorted fruit for breakfast. Lunch was strips of chicken breast marinated, grilled, and served with sauteed green beans and pancetta, all tossed in olive oil. There was penne pasta with marinara sauce. And grilled focaccia. And salad with fennel, apples, cucumbers, shredded cabbage, red onions, and iceberg lettuce, tossed in an orange vinaigrette. Good eats anywhere any time, but a special treat on a rolling boat on a slow day.

Later, around 1515, after the blood had returned to our brains from its digestive duties in our stomachs,we caught the barracuda and the tiny tuna, the former on my new Bob Schneider St. Thomas Prowler, which was running on the right short, and the latter on the artificial ballyhoo on the center line. And that was it for the day.

But the game was still worth the candle, if for no other reason than that the Fishing Madonnas, Mary and Maria, countenance no pessimism when lines are in the water, and they had ample practice sustaining the enthusiasm of moody men from 0800, when the lines went in the water, until 1600, when they came out, practice that will come in handy should the morale of the men in the Bisbee Bunch flag and their attentions wander during a slow day in the tournament. As we responded to their humor and encouragement, I was reminded of the answer T.E. Lawrence (as in, of Arabia) gave when he was asked why men go to war. "Because their women are watching," he said.


I love fishing, even when there is no complementary catching.

Be Careful Out There!

For all of you who fancy themselves marlin fishermen, want to be marlin fishermen, or want reasons not to be marlin fishermen, take a look at the two videos below.

http://animal.discovery.com/videos/untamed-and-uncut-cutdowns-marlin-impales-boys-face.html

http://animal.discovery.com/videos/untamed-and-uncut-marlin-fishing-gone-wrong.html

I think the lessons to be learned from these two dramatic vignettes are two: there is such a thing as too hot, at least if one is not talking about women; and a slow hand is indeed a good thing, even if one is talking about fish.

Bisbee Bulletin, 9/25/09: Meeting Our Fellow Travelers (Not the Pink Kind)

Last night, the entire complement of Bisbee adventurers foregathered at the home of Wayne and Maria at their invitation for an introductory dinner. All of us knew some of the others in the group, but only Wayne and Maria knew everyone. So, before spending a week cheek to jowl on airplanes, in our Magnificent Mexican Mansion, and on the Carpe Diem (our chartered 61 foot Buddy Davis marlin mauling machine), it was thought advisable for everyone to say howdy in relaxed, convivial atmosphere. This opportunity arose because Betty and Roy, who nominally live in Los Angeles, had stopped in Destin to visit Betty’s condo as part of their seemingly unending peregrinations between their second, third, fourth, etc., homes and various exotic vacation destinations.

In attendance were Wayne Lewis and Maria Falduco, me and Mary, George and Janice (“J.R.”) Hendricks, and Betty Carner and Roy Rogers. (Yes, Roy Rogers, but the retired architect cum big game hunter and blue water fisherman, not the deceased sidekick of Gabby Hayes.) It is an interesting group - verbal, witty, mannered, and seasoned with enviable experience. Wayne has lived in a tent in the Ethiopian wilds, done time in Vietnam, and twice returned from offshore in boats other than those in which he departed, one having sunk while he was fishing and one having disappeared while he was diving. Maria cooks like Julia Child, as you will read, and fishes like Zane Grey, having, for example, free gaffed a big dolphin at the boat and having dived overboard to save a rod that went into the water after it was snatched from the rod holder by a striking fish. George’s and J.R.’s businesses manufacture and install spas in private homes, destination resorts and luxury hotels all over the world, and they have travelled much of it. Betty has a colorful (not checkered, just colorful) past that has included work in the movies, such as being the double for Faye Dunaway. Roy, as stated earlier, is a retired architect and active sportsman; his next big gig after the Bisbee is a big horn sheep hunt in December, having waited years to secure the appropriate license, and for which he personally is building a rifle specific to the task. And Mary and I, well, we are simply sans pareil. Maria is the baby of the bunch at 39, the men are all in their sixties, and the other ladies are femmes d’une certain âge - attractive, fit, and game, credits to their sex every one. There are no newbies among the Bisbee Bunch.

The evening, not surprisingly Mexican themed, began with an appetizer of dorado ceviché and tortilla chips, alcohol in various manifestations for all hands, and cigars for George and me on the balcony, which means I have a wing man when smoking Cuban stogies in Cabo. There was a very pleasant woman making and dispensing margaritas, who later assisted Maria in serving dinner. For most of the evening, I thought she was someone’s sister, but, no, she was a person who serves, a serving person, actually a serving wench, if gender is taken into account. In a private home, mind you. There was no uniform, no apron or cap, and no tankards of ale, but there were flagons of wine. I hate to sound like I fell of the turnip truck yesterday, but this is pretty tall cotton for a red neck from Williston.

Before dinner, Wayne said he wanted to show us a “game film” to get us in the mood. Someone with less couth that me might have had prurient expectations, but I surmised it would be something more about our group ambitions than our individual fantasies, and, sure enough, it was a video produced by the Guy Harvey Foundation about billfishing. I believe Wayne, who is probably worried about those of us with less tournament experience than he, which is all of us, booting several hundred thousand dollars in prize money through some stupid mistake, wanted us to learn something. I learned that Guy Harvey is a Brit, that all of the really good billfishing locales are where I ain’t, and that Mary would rather go to the resort at Los Sueño with me than to a fishing village in Ghana.

Dinner was a gourmet’s delight. There was traditional tortilla soup to start, followed by grilled filet with chimichoura salsa, fried poblano peppers stuffed with cheese and roasted tomato salsa, marinated and grilled portabella mushrooms and zucchini, and guacamole in an avocado shell. I am here to tell you that these were fine vittles, but some of it was strange looking to a culinary naïf like myself. I am certain that my mother’s brothers would have eaten only the filet and refused to even taste the rest even if drunk, their idea of fine dining being steak, taters in some form, and iceberg lettuce with a few chunks of tomato and a ton of ranch dressing. You would think that folks who would eat pickled pig’s feet, hog jowls, and squirrel brains would eat just about anything, but you would be wrong.

As the dinner progressed and the wine flowed, everyone loosened up, me so much so that I was practically sliding out of my chair to take my rightful place under the table. Wayne, ever the teacher, felt the urge to stand up and instruct us on how to feed a pitch bait on an imaginary rod to a big, angry marlin trying to eat a teaser. From where I was slumped, Wayne, being what my grandma called a big feller, looked liked for all the world like a giant playing an air guitar. Somewhere not long after this demonstration of simulated piscatorial prowess, South Carolina finished off Ole Miss, I finished off the pinot noir, and we all departed to our respective home with visions of mariachi bands and amazing marlin dancing in our heads.

David Versus Two Goliaths (9/26/09)

As this past week wore on, and despite ever changing and often discouraging weather forecasts, it became apparent that, in addition to me and mine, the Mitchells sans Bart ,who was going to be in Sarasota, and Wayne and the Bella Marias intended to fish on Saturday if at all possible. There were rumors of big dolphin and wahoo and occasional billfish shots just off the SW Edge toward the Nipple, which meant that the trip would be short enough to be bearable if the weather was snotty, and might not be bad at all if the wind was in the NE in the morning and went around to the SW in the afternoon as predicted, because we would be running down sea going and coming.

That being the case, it was decided (by Maria and Drew, I think) that Saturday would be the Second (not Annual, because not consecutive) East Pass Marina Billfish Invitational. There were four paying fish categories ­ - billfish, dolphin, wahoo, and tuna. Billfish were catch and release (250 points for a blue marlin, 150 for a white marlin, and 100 for a sailfish) with $300 in the billfish calcutta. The dolphin, wahoo, and tuna calcuttas were $150 each, heaviest fish on the dock being the winner. With three boats, this meant we each had to pay $250 to play. (This is pretty serious money for those of us who are not regional restaurateurs like Wayne or advertising and t-shirt manufacturing magnates like the Mitchells, and I was apprehensive about the risk I was taking.) There were no time limitations on lines in or lines out, but you had to be in your slip by 6:00 PM or be disqualified.

The Bella Maria, a 52 Viking Flybridge, was captained by Wayne and crewed by Maria, Zeke Frye, the usual deck hand, George Hendricks of the Bisbee Bunch, and Rusty Maulden, formerly mate on the Legendary and currently captain of the Traveller.

The Mitchells selected the Blue Heaven, a 45 Cabo Express, from their family fleet (the 45 Cabo Express and a 54 Hatteras Flybridge) as their fishing platform. The crew was composed of Drew, working the cockpit in Bart’s absence, Mama Melanie Mitchell, George Alford, who has appeared previously in the Gaffes Gone Wild episode of The Fishing Reports, Jeff Cook, a new face for me, and Mark Yanora, the full time captain of the Mitchell fleet. Papa Pete Mitchell remained on the dock, agreeing to serve as the Tournament Director.

And last and least, the Hammerhead, a 35 Cabo Express, was captained by moi and crewed Eric Songer, my son-in-law, Bobby Cresap, an itinerant architect, and Freeman Songer, my 8 year old grandson.

I knew Wayne would target billfish, because he cannot help himself, meaning he would fish at least as far west as the blended blue water reported near the Nipple and perhaps as far as the Elbow, where blue water was reported to the south. My intention was to do something similar, but shorter. The Mitchells, who are crafty and first rate fishermen to boot, had an alternate strategy. Friday afternoon, Drew and Mark were rigging wire leaders, apparently targeting wahoo and dolphin, and I heard Drew on the phone with Ed Gobel, talking about the Knuckle, which meant they probably were going to hang close to the Edge, foregoing the best opportunities for billfish, but optimizing their chances for meat fish.

I decided that if the little, undermanned David that was the Hammerhead was to have any chance at all against the two Goliaths and their crews liberally salted with pros we would need plenty of time, which required an early departure, as David is also slower than the Goliaths. So, we again left the slip in the dark, but this time with a working spotlight, which was a plus as the moon had set, and we cleared the sea buoy and were up and running by 0525.

Our run out was well timed. The day was dawning just as we reached 350 feet of water beyond the SW edge, where I intended to begin fishing toward the Nipple. After all the uncertainty of the forecasts, the sea was flat, and the sunrise was glorious. As the sun climbed out of the sea to the east and fought its way through a slate blue and lavender cloud bank hanging low on the horizon, the water was translucent aqua (actually, more cyan than aqua, but I don’t want to be pretentious) suffused with deep pink highlights. Freeman was transfixed.

Perhaps the beauty of the sunrise beguiled us all, because we promptly boogered up our lines, wrapping the long right around the long center, and deploying a helicoptering ballyhoo on the short center. By the time we were squared away and all six lines and both teasers were out, it was 0710 and our time advantage was lost, as the Bella Maria passed us running west and the Blue Heaven called on the radio to say they had lines in the water.

The Second East Pass Marina Billfish Invitational was on.

Now, everyone loves the story of David versus Goliath, for the same reasons they love the ’69 Mets or almost any underdog overcomes the odds story. The attraction is not just the delicious humbling of hubris. It is also the element of pleasant surprise, the outcome being so at variance with that usually dictated by the unforgiving physics of superior size, speed, and talent; The point being that David's victory is the exception, not the rule. Which is to say we got our asses kicked.

It was a relatively slow day for all three boats, with small fish all around, but less so for the Goliaths than for David. At 1030, the Bella Maria caught and released a white marlin about 15 nautical miles south of the Nipple, which is where we were fishing by then. This fish hit a ballyhoo skirted with a pink and white Ilander on the left long line which was a 30. George Hendricks was the angler.

Earlier, the Blue Heaven had reported a decent wahoo in the box, but the Bella Maria could not hear them, although I could, which meant they were fishing well to the east, as I suspected they would. They subsequently caught a second wahoo and a dolphin. They lost their biggest wahoo at the boat, released a barracuda, had a number of cut offs just behind the hook, which were undoubtedly the work of the wily wahoo, and saw a blue marlin in the distance, but could not attract his attention.

At 1330, we finally saw some action: a suicidal bull dolphin with a little man complex ravaged the right side of the Hammerhead’s spread, and finally impaled himself on a 10/0 hook in a skirted horse ballyhoo on the center long line. Eric went to the rod first, which was a 50, but my main man, eight year old Freeman McKager Songer, insisted he could handle it, and did. It was a small fish, 13 pounds, but it was a big rod and a small boy. Papa was pleased.

The Bella Maria had two trash bites, a shark on the long center line and a barracuda on the long right, both skirted ballyhoo, and caught and released them both. Maria was the angler on both of these fish, and retired from the rod for the duration of the Tournament, being clearly snake bit. Late in the afternoon, just before lines in, a wahoo slammed a Mini 1656 Angle lure on the right short, and went into the box. George was again the angler, he not being snake bit like Maria.

At about 1430, Freeman noticed there was a fish on our short center line, a skirted ballyhoo being fished off the tip of a 50. Obviously, it was a small fish that did not pull any drag, which is why the captain and the eagle eyed adults in the crew did not even notice he was on. Eric reeled in a skipjack weighing about 10 pounds, and it went into the box, because, after all, it was a tuna, and none had been reported by the other boats.

The Blue Heaven picked up first, but we were not far behind. The Bella Maria , which cruises a t 30 plus knots, was last to pull its lines in, as usual.

Back at the dock, the Mitchells’ dolphin weighed in at 16 pounds, besting Freeman’s 13 pounder and winning that calcutta. Their larger wahoo weighed 22 ½ pounds.

We settled in with rum, beer, and other comforts, waiting to see if the Bella Maria would make it in on time or be disqualified. Wayne backed her into the slip with 10 minutes to spare.

The Bella Maria’s wahoo weighed 21 ½ pounds, which triggered a lot of re-weighing, with various old men squinting at the tiny numbers on the hand scale hanging from a hook through, over, and under their glasses. Maria was quite vocal in this debate, but was too short to read the scale, and had to defer to her taller elders. Wayne, who isn’t short and is painfully honest, finally called the ball, and the Blue Heaven’s one pound margin stood up, winning them a second $150.

The Bella Maria having won the $300 billfish calcutta with the sole billfish released, only the tuna money was left after the wahoo controversy was settled. The problem was that when folks think of tournament tuna, they are thinking of bluefins, yellowfins, or at least blackfins, but that is not what the e-mails setting forth the tournament rules said. The reference was to just plain old tuna, and skipjacks are definitely tuna. As Casey Stengel said, you can look it up in the book. Appeal was made to the only lawyer present, which fortunately for me was me, and I ruled in my favor, thus carrying off the last $150, to which no one really objected, because the Tao of T-Ball (everyone is a winner) had set in as the rum took hold.

Later, after the fish were cleaned and the more fastidious among us had showered, Papa Pete Mitchell treated us all to barbecue and all the fixings on the dock, where we were joined by my Mary, who tore herself away from the Gators romp over Kentucky, and by Betty Carner and Roy Rogers of the Bisbee Bunch, who just smelled the food and joined the crowd, to our delight.

I gave Freeman $50 for fighting the dolphin and spotting the skipjack. This was his second tournament and the second time he has won money, having won $20 by thrashing Drew’s teenage son and some of his buddies in a pin fishing contest when they foolishly allowed each fish Freeman caught to count as two because he was just six years old.

I love fishing.