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 packin
g 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.
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