"Fishing Stories from the Caribbean"

From a Series of Short Fishing Stories

By: Capt. "Tato"  Reyes

The Biggest Fish I ever Caught

        It was a wonderful Wednesday morning in the middle of July back in 1984. Both my wife and I had no patients scheduled that day and had planned on a “just the two of us” fishing day. The kids went to school and their Nanny was home waiting for them when they came back from school.

        Ivette prepared some sandwiches and I packed some soft drinks for the trip. The boat was ready and so were we. We left the dock at 8:00AM with a soft 5-10 MPH breeze from shore, seas were 2’to 3’ and the bright Caribbean sun was persistently inviting us to go fishing.

       Once on deep water, probably 120 fathoms, we put out two baits.  Ivette preferred the big horse eye ballyhoo rigged with a 7/0 stainless steel hook on 300# mono leader; and I preferred my one-pound debonned mullet with a 9/0 stainless steel Mustad hook on 400# mono leader material.

       I set up Ivette low on the right outrigger and I was riding the middle rigger not too far behind her bait. I had two Moldcraft Flatheads Giant teasers 20 feet behind the transom inviting all the billfish in the area to come and take a look.

       The morning went by without a strike; we listened to music and ate our lunch. Ivette even took a nap while I kept my eyes glued to the baits; I knew there was a fish for us that day.

       The weekend before we trolled for over 16 hours between Saturday and Sunday without a single strike. People were catching marlins all around us but we were not even having bites. It always happened that after a couple of bad days I would always have a good week ahead of me and this was it.

       Ivette woke up from her nap about 2:00 PM and said we should go home.

       I learned early in our marriage that she is the real Captain of our boat so without arguing I agreed to head back to shore.

       We were six miles north east of our marina so I had time for a few tags before we would be in front of our marina.

       I kept the baits in the water trying to delay our return back home. Thank God Ivette does not pay much attention as to which direction I am heading so I knew I could get maybe one more hour of fishing. It was a great day.

       We were heading southwest just short of the 100 fathoms curve when he showed up behind my bait. I could see he was big because his dorsal fin cleared close to two feet out of the water but he was not decided to bite.

       I knocked my bait from the center rigger and yelled Ivette to accelerate the boat enough to create some commotion. I raised my rod tip as high as I could and reeled in some line to make my bait skip a few times. He lighted up and hit it with all his power. Five seconds of drop back and I set the drag to my usual 19#. He was hooked for good and we had no doubt it was ours.

       I told Ivette we were in for a good fight since the fish looked bigger than our usual Wednesday fish. She took the helm after clearing the cockpit and setting up the flying gaffs in the ready position. Remember this is just the two of us. We have done this many times but this fish seemed bigger.

       To our surprise in less than 45 minutes the fish started showing color and we knew he was ready for the gaff. We wanted to make sure he was tired but we did not wanted him to loose his ability to swim because we would not be able to stop a vertical drop of a fish that size.

       The fish came to the boat and Ivette set in the first gaff on him, I jumped from the chair and set the second one. He did not moved, he stayed there without trashing against the boat, and he just stayed there. He was good 12 feet long and he had a big belly. I estimated at least 500# so we knew we needed help to get him aboard. We called on the radio but there was no one available so we tied him to the side of the boat and slowly headed back to shore.

       When on shore I brought the trailer to the ramp and brought the boat and the fish hanging from its side into the trailer. We drove down the road to the house where we weighted the fish that tipped the scale to 602#, our biggest ever.

       He still is the biggest fish I ever caught and what is sad to say is that he did not offer a fight worth remembering. I call him my biggest disappointment.

From Fishing Stories from the Caribbean

copyright Capt Tato Reyes