Uh, Was That A Marlin?

Every foray by Hammerhead, or by the Hammerheads in another boat, does not result in a story about fish caught. But every trip is nonetheless an adventure, and some new lesson is almost always learned.

As you know, the Hammerheads' motto is, "If it ain't blowin', we're goin'." The principle is simple enough, but the question is what exactly constitutes blowin'? The obvious answer is wind that produces waves such that people who truly love to fish would prefer to be on the dock rather than on the boat. But this in turn depends on the individual, the boat, and the trip.

There is no bright dividing line here. Wayne Lewis on the Bella Maria, a 52 Viking, has brought home sea weed on his outriggers, picked up when he dipped an outrigger into the back of a wave while wallowing in a heavy beam sea. Pete Mitchell of the Anonymous, a 54 Hatteras, says, "If it's 4, stay on shore.", and he means it. Outta Here, a 65 Viking on C dock, and Just Teasing, a 60 Hatteras on B dock, crush waves that shiver the timbers of Hammerhead. And it's one thing to slog 8 nm out from Stuart on a 53 Bertram in 6 to 8 foot rollers to sailfish, as the Hammerheads did December before last, and another to slam into a 4 foot chop on a 35 foot Cabo for the 90 nm from Destin to the Double Nipple.

Which brings me back to this past weekend. The forecast was for wind 10 to 15 knots out of the south , seas 2 to 4 feet. And this had been the forecast for four or five days, meaning rollers with some wind blown chop on top. But the Pensacola weather buoy, 115 nm to the southeast was reporting waves of only 2 feet. But this type of report is the average of the highest 1/3 of measured waves, meaning that every third wave could be twice the reported height. But... But ...


No buts; I decided to give'er a go. Hammerhead departed around 7 pm Friday with yours truly, Eric Songer, and a friend of his, Mike Esser, aboard, bound for a reported hard color break 85 nm to the SSW.

Things started swimmingly as we pushed into 2 foot swells at 7 knots. We divided the watches into 2 1/2 hours each beginning at 2100. I went first. Eric relieved me at 2330, just as the moon was rising. The wind had picked up, and the sea was getting lumpier, but nothing to write home to mama about. As I slept that half sleep captains sleep when underway at night, I was from time to time conscious of a shudder when Hammerhead slammed into a particularly large wave or of a bang when she fell off a big one into the trough.

At 0130, Eric woke me up. "You better come on deck," he said. Mike was already there. "It's pretty snotty," Eric said, " and it's been getting worse ever since I came on watch." He was right. The seas were not 2 to 4, they were 4, then 4, and 4 again, right on our nose, and three to five seconds apart. Hammerhead was laboring. I slowed to 5.5 knots. Better, but not good. We were 35 nm from our intended destination, still north of the Spur and 50 nm from the house. To give you a feel for the conditions, below is a photo we took of a nearby boat. Alright, maybe not, but it is what I would have expected to see if there had been a nearby boat and if I had been able to see it, but then I am a tad melodramatic.


There were three choices. Push on, take the beating, and hope it did not get much worse as we moved farther and farther out. Or turn tail and head for home in a more comfortable following sea, arriving back in the slip in time to take Mary to breakfast at the Donut Hole. Or split the difference by seeing if there was a heading we could tolerate and stay out and fish without going too much deeper into the Gulf.

Roffs showed a possible color break between blue and blue-green water east of the Squiggles, some 30 miles to the east, but still only 50 nm or so from home, so we turned due east, taking the 4 footers on the starboard beam. Hammerhead rolled like a pig. You had to press your feet against the aft bulkhead and jam your elbow and forearm between the cushion and the starboard bulkhead to avoid being rolled out of the rack as you tried and failed to sleep. But it was tolerable, and tolerate it we did until the sun came up.

We had our spread out in blue water by 0600, trolling to the east. But we did not find a color break. After a couple of hours of a lot of nothing, rolling and rolling, we back tracked, fishing north of west toward the Nipple. We eventually came on a north to south weed line to die for in cobalt blue water. It was at least ten yards wide and a mile and a half to two miles long, with bait, birds, and flying fish. We dragged our wares up and down it four times without even a knock down.

So, perhaps impatiently and unwisely, we set off once again to the west. A little after mid-day, we came upon a legless chair with a white vinyl cushion on the seat floating upside down in blue water, covered in barnacles and covered up with mahi. I am ashamed to admit that we only went one for four on mahi bites. I have no excuses, but I do have explanations, lame as they are. One mahi was lost to bad angling. One to bad luck. And the third, a bull in the 20 to 30 pound range, was lost to bad judgment, as we intentionally left him in the water to attract others until he finally came unstuck right at the transom as I reached for him with the gaff.

Lesson Number 1 For The Trip: If you have a fish hooked that is bigger than a loaf of bread, stick it at your first opportunity and put it in the box.

Lesson Number 2 For The Trip: If you have a live bait, put it out when you stop in a school of marlin food hanging out on something that has been floating in the water for some time.

This lesson was learned when we pulled in our spread, backed up to the chair, and began tossing lures on spinning rods at the chicken dolphin, just playing around. Eric and Mike were casting, and I was standing in the cockpit watching, when it happened. No more than 20 yards from the transom, a 300 to 400 pound blue marlin exploded out of the water, spraying chicken dolphin skyward in a veritable fish fountain, then fell back in a great splash, creating another, smaller geyser of terrified schoolies. It was a real Guy Harvey moment.

I was so surprised I almost soiled myself. By the time I had recovered my wits, gotten underway, and put the spread back out, the marlin was gone. And there definitely wasn't a mahi with a lick of sense within 10 miles.

It was then I remembered there was a marlin snack size juvenile ambejack swimming around in the bait well, waiting for a close encounter of the worst kind with The Man in the Blue Suit. I let him go.

We were in the slip with one small mahi, mildly bruised bodies and badly bruised egos in time to console ourselves with a few Cuba Libres before eating a wonderful dinner Mary had waiting for us.

Next time out I hope for fewer lessons and more fish.

Big Bill, a Billfish, and a Boy

This past week end, not weekend, the Hammerheads - Papa, Eric, and Freemanator - fished on Blue Heaven (45 Cabo Express) with the the Mitchell brothers, Drew and Bart, and Bill Sundberg, a friend of Drew's. Bill is the son of former Chief Justice Alan Sundberg, a brilliant man with whom I worked way back when I was still somebody and he was still alive. And, as you can see in the photo below, Bill is also somehow related to Andre the Giant and Abraham Lincoln.

Over the last couple of weeks, there were multiple reports of blue marlin, yellow fin tuna, and wahoo waiting beyond the horizon to test the mettle of enterprising fishermen, including a first hand report from Wayne Lewis about the 200 plus pound blue marlin he released and the 55 pound wahoo he kept Saturday a week ago and a third hand report from Ed Gobel through Mark Yanora to the Mitchell clan of big yellow fin over toward the rigs a few days ago. I resolved to do my part in thinning out this unexpected bumper crop of Spring pelagics in the northeastern Gulf, and Drew pinky swore he could be counted on to make the trip, excepting only weather. And just as if the Almighty wasn't really All Knowing and wanted to see what Drew would do, a weather window opened early in the week that would not close until Friday night. After factoring in the exigencies of work for those who work, Thursday and Friday was settled upon as the appointed time for our adventure.

Both ELINT and HUMINT (The military veterans among you can explain these terms to the others.) agreed that the nasty ass water pouring out of the mouth of the Mississippi was pushing the blue water we sought south and east at a good clip, while incidentally wreaking billions of dollars of economic damage and ruining thousands of lives upstream. The Thursday afternoon Roff's Report showed the western edge of the blue water at the Double Nipple, 95 nautical miles to the southwest, so we decided to head that way at dusk, bumping along through the moonlit night at 8 knots into the predicted two foot head sea, expecting to find ourselves in green water at dawn, at which time we would troll east, hoping to find a hard edge when we caught up with the retreating blue water.

And that is the way it worked out, except that there was no hard edge. It was more like a transition area in which the water went from green to blue-green to Thank you, Baby Jesus, Blue in short order, accompanied by a relatively steep water temperature gradient. The Mitchells ran three teasers: a Black Bart Extreme Breakfast on the left teaser, bowling pins on the left corner and a pink squid daisy chain on the right teaser. There were five hooks in the water: a Pakula Wombat on a bent butt 80 on the left short, a Black Bart 1656 Angle on a bent butt 80 on the right short, a Bob Schneider St. Thomas Prowler on a straight 50 on the left long fished from the cover board, a Mean Joe Green Cabo Shaker on a straight 50 on the right long fished from the cover board, and down the center, some 300 yards out, a select ballyhoo with a blue and white Ilander on its nose behind a bird teaser on a bent butt 80 fished from the chair.

Our first action came early, less than an hour after lines in. Bang! Knock down on the center rigger. As I am usually at the helm on Hammerhead and seldom touch a rod anymore, I decided to take advantage of my status as a guest aboard Blue Heaven. I elbowed Bill Sundberg in the kidneys, shoved him out of the way as he gasped for breath, and jumped into the chair with the bent butt 80. And it was a struggle, a big yellow fin for sure. Or maybe it was just the drag of the big belly in 300 plus yards of 80 pound monofilament with a bird teaser and a stunned 23 pound bull mahi pinned to the end of the line, all providing ample resistance for a 62 year old angler whose best days were some time ago and not all that impressive even then. As you can see from the expression on my face as I wound in the fish with Freemanator driving the chair, it is fortunate that there wasn't 50 more yards of line out or that the mahi wasn't five pounds heavier, or my colleagues would have had to use the defribrillator paddles on me.

Eric, Hammerhead's primary angler, practiced his gaffing technique, proving he needs practice, but managing to get the fish in the box nonetheless.

Not long after my Mahi Moment, I was sitting on the right cover board with my hand on the reel of the bent butt 80, thinking about asking for a refund on my gym membership, when the 50 right behind me went off, drag screaming. "Billfish! Billfish!' Drew shouted from the tower. A white marlin had made a kamikaze run on the Mean Joe Green Cabo Shaker on the long right and scored a direct hit.

I wheeled, grabbed the 50, yelled, "Freeman! Get in the chair!", kicked an advancing Bill Sundberg in the groin, and passed the rod to Freeman as Bill doubled over. At ten, Freeman is too small for the chair, even with the bucket seat straps shortened and the foot rest as far up as it will go. His toes just managed to get some purchase on the foot rest with his fanny on the edge of the seat, and the bucket was no help at all, as you can see in the photo below, so it was all on Freemanator, with quiet encouragement from his father, a lot of counterproductive exhortations from his grandfather, who you can see chirping away in the background, and some judicious boat handling by Drew.Freemanator was equal to the task, pumping and reeling, level winding, and pretty much ignoring all of my advice, little of which was helpful and none of which was necessary.

Bart leadered the fish, I billed him, and into the boat it came for its close up. If there are any among you who wonder why men fish, look at this boy's face. This was a nice white, Freemanator's first, and it was successfully released without any injury other than to its pride. Another hour had not passed before Drew called out, "Here she comes! Right side! Right side!" I looked up and saw a cow mahi greyhounding in from two o'clock. She definitely meant business, but lacked control, crashing into the short right, knocking it out of the clip, but missing the hook. She skidded sideways into a sharp clockwise turn, like a running dog trying to get traction on a hardwood floor, and charged the same lure again. This time she found the hook. The drag on the 80 sang out. I took the rod out of the cover board, and turned to find Big Bill already sitting in the chair, grinning like the Chesire Cat. The chair is not too small for Bill, and an 80 is a gracious plenty of rod and reel, so it didn't take long before another 20 plus pound mahi was in the box, although less damage would have been done to the meat if Eric had shot her anywhere near the head with a 20 guage shotgun instead of gaffing her where he did. Practice, practice, practice.

At this point it was only mid-morning, but the action was almost all over. Almost, but not quite. From time to time, we would see big yellow fin busting not far away, jumping clear of the water. But every time we approached, they would go down, and we never found the right combination of meat and plastic to entice them to eat. And our own Captain Ahab, was able to call out from the crow's nest "Whale, ho!" as we passed close to a sperm whale, which saluted us with a spout of water.

Noon found us chugging up the Canyon east of the Dumping Ground in gorgeous blue water. But no birds, no bait, no grass. Good time for lunch. Or a terrorist attack. Unheralded by the usual alarm from Drew in the tower, a white marlin slashes in close, coming from left to right. Knocks down the short left. Knocks down the short right. Pulls drag. Drops the lure. I reel, reel, reel, with Drew overhead yelling, "Reel, reel, reel!" Sure enough, the fish comes in again, wagging bill out of the water, hotter than a $2 pistol on Saturday night. Bart drops back a pitch bait. The terrorist grabs it in its mouth. Turns. Looks back at Bart with contempt in its big ol' eye. Spits out the bait. And is gone.

Then it was over. At 2 PM, with an approaching front threatening to get between us and the house, we picked them up and began the 75 nautical mile run in, tired, happy, and excited. After all, it is only early May.