First Foray, First Blood

I write to tell the story of the first fishing trip of the Blind Hog, which took place this past Sunday.  But first, a little background.  Mary and I closed on the Blind Hog on July 26, and it immediately went into the Jarrett Bay Boatworks yard in Beaufort, North Carolina, for survey remediations and upgrades, where it remained for two weeks.  The Jarrett Bay folks are first class craftsmen and nice folks; their considerable skills are matched only by their patience and desire to please their customers. I was very pleased.

Mary and I left Tallahassee on Tuesday, August 14 in a rented mini-van full life jackets, chain, rode, an anchor, charts, fenders, buckets, water hoses, towels, toilet paper, wine, rum, etc.  You get the picture. We arrived around noon on the 15th, and loaded the boat that afternoon.  The next day, the 16th, we sea trialed the boat in the morning and then moved it to the municipal marina in Morehead City. Below is a picture of the Blind Hog at the Jarrett Bay yard just prior to departing to our jumping off point.

At  first light on Friday, August 17, we were off.  I will not recount in this post our adventures during the trip, which were many and varied, and by no means all fun and games.  Suffice it to say, we were eight days on the water, and only  ran aground once before we finally made it to Carrabelle, just 120 nautical miles from Destin.  But there things came unglued for a while. Because of a hurricane followed by the death of my mother, it would be another two weeks before the boat made it to its new home. But, finally, just after noon on Friday, September 7, I backed the Blind Hog into its slip at East Pass Towers Marina in Destin Harbor.

Bringing home the bacon was kinda like my time in the Marine Corps: I am proud of what Mary and I acomplished. And I am glad to have the experience under my belt. But I ain't doing it again.

After another week of preparation and waiting for a weather window, it was time to put the new boat through its paces with hooks in the water.  At dawn last Sunday, the Hog went snorting through East Pass on the hunt for acorns.  The crew on this first foray consisted of me, Mary, the Freemanator, Wayne Lewis, Justin Goff, and Lisa Weber, a fine assemblage, as you can see in the photo below.

We headed for a pocket of blue water reported beyond the Ozark, about 30 nm due south, and we found it. While we were still deploying the outriggers, something ate a ballyhoo on the long center line.  And before you could say "first blood", a nice blackfin tuna was in the boat.  I pause here to note that the angler on this very first fish to be caught on the Blind Hog was my grandson, Freeman McKager Songer, aka the Freemanator, aka the Fishing Fool. This made his Papa very happy.

A half an hour later, there was a big bite on a medium Zacatak Sprocket with a lumo skirt on the short right rigger. Lisa went to the chair and fought this fish with skill and determination for some time until it finally chewed through the 300 pound Momoi Xtra Hard leader.  The leader was so frayed and boogered up that it would not go through the hook stop on the lure, which saved my Sprocket.  Undoubtedly, this was a big wahoo like the one Mary caught in June on the same lure.

Then things got slow. Real slow. So, we picked up and ran to the Spur, another 25 nm to the south, where we started to troll  down into the DeSoto Canyon. Again, slow going, nothing happening, the water not all that blue.  I chatted up a nearby boat that had been fishing the area for two days without any results that  the captain cared to mention.  Bummer. The only encouraging news was that we could see  and hear a boat about three miles to the west that had been fighting a big blue marlin for more than an hour when we arrived.

Wayne and the Freemanator climb into the tower to try and find something for us to fish on.  Nada. The boat is rolling in a three foot beam sea.  The diesel engines are rumbling. It's hot.  Looks like it's going to be a long ......

The long right goes off like a pistol shot.  Rod bowed, line sizzling off the reel against 15 pounds of drag.

"Wayne! Freeman! Fish on! Fish on! Get down here!"

Wayne comes lumbering down the tower ladder at flank speed while Freeman comes down the other side like a fireman sliding down a firehouse pole.

"Clear, clear, clear!  Lisa, get in the chair."

Lisa is in the chair with the rod, a straight butt with a Talica 25 reel spooled with 700 yards of 60 pound test, pumping and reeling. I take the boat out of gear, and begin to bring in the teasers while everyone is clearing the other lines. Even Mary, who is wearing a soft cast on her injured left hand, is in the cockpit.

"Fish, big fish!" she shouts, pointing beyond the transom.  And she is right.  I see color in the water, bearing down on the squid teaser that is almost at the left corner of the boat by now.

"It's a marlin," Wayne calls out.  "Put the boat in gear! Go forward!"

And I do. The boat surges forward, and the  marlin swerves left, suddenly attracted to the bird teaser on the right side, where there is a bent butt Tiagra 50 with a swimming ballyhoo on a circle hook in the corner position.  Justin has been clearing it, and the wind-on is already partially on the reel. That's how close to the boat the bait is.

"Feed him, Justin.  Knock it out of gear," Wayne yells.  Justin throws the drag into free spool, and, just like you draw it up, the marlin grabs the ballyhoo and takes off.  Wait for it...  Wait for it... One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

"Lock it up, Justin." Justin pushes the drag forward. The clicker wails against the drag as the line races off the reel .

"Fish on!"

Now we have a double, a mystery fish on a straight butt that Lisa is fighting from the chair, and a marlin on a regular bent butt that has to be fished from the chair. Rather, than switch people, we switch rods.  The Freemanator takes the straight butt and backs into the right forward corner of the cockpit to fight the mystery fish standing up.  Lisa takes the bent butt in the chair and goes back to work. In fairly short order, Wayne is leadering the second fish, a nice white marlin, on the left side of the cockpit.  You can see the ballyhoo still dangling from the circle hook that is improbably imbedded in the roof of his mouth. Wayne and Justin release this fish without difficulty, and away he swims, unharmed. One down.

Now for the mystery fish, which the Freemanator has been battling away from the main action.  Lisa quickly hops out of the chair, and the Fishing Fool climbs in. Here he is, checking his line level as he reels, a budding craftsman being coached by Wayne as his grandmother looks down range for a show of any kind that would reveal the identity of the mystery fish.

Probably not a tuna.  Maybe another big wahoo? Freemanator has most of the line on the reel.  I bump the boat to port to put the fish on the right side of the cockpit, our preferred side. (I wonder why?) Justin gets the gaff and moves into position.  Wayne is ready, still wearing the leadering gloves. Lisa is driving the chair.  Everything is going just as if we know what we're doing.

"Color! I see color. Big fish." Mary calls out.

"It's a marlin," Wayne adds.  Deja vu all over  again. A billfish double. 

Here is the mystery fish, pinned to a Black Bart 1656 Mini Angle with a 9/0 hook in a rainbow skirt.  All my lures that have caught billfish have names.  This is Judy Garland, as in "Somewhere over the rainbow...", and this is her third white marlin. It is the second white and the sixth billfish for the Fishing Fool. He and the Hog are both off to auspicious starts in what hopefully will be long careers in blue water fishing.

Wayne and Justin effect another clean release, and the marlin swims off while we put our wares back in the water and then go looking for more acorns.  And we find one about an hour later.  A white hits Little David, a dorado skirted small Cabo Shaker on the long left.  He knocks it down, but will not eat.  He is just playing, snaking around behind the lure with his tail and dorsal out of the water as we drop the lure back and reel it up trying to provoke him, all to no avail.  Finally, he gets bored and leaves.  

It's not late, but the Freemanator has school in the morning in Tallahassee, so we leave too, arriving back at the dock at around Miller time, where Lisa takes her obligatory dunking as a first time marlin catcher in order to propitiate the billfish gods. 

A truly great day, one that proved the Hog can raise fish and that those who crew him can sometimes catch them.  May many more flags like the ones below fly from his outrigger halyard before his days and my days on the water are done.