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.
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