"Stories from the Caribbean"
From a Series of Short Stories

By: Capt. "Tato"  Reyes

This is how it all started…

I grew up fishing with my dad on the north coast on the island of Puerto Rico where my family had some land with a nice piece of beachfront property. Most of the time we fished for Kingfish, Barracuda, Jacks and other close to shore species. It was basically trolling along the coastline in smaller boats (20’ or less). We did a lot of spear fishing and lobstering too.

Those years went by fast and I went to college, then to Dental School and finally had some money to get myself a boat of my own. It was 1979 and my dad came with me to Miami to buy my first vessel. I wanted a Mako but ended up buying a 25 foot Aquasport with twin 140HP Evinrudes that has never been used in saltwater. It was a cuddy cabin so it had a huge fishing area. I really liked the boat from a practical fish ability point but I liked the looks of the center consoles. I am glad my dad talked me out of the center consoles then and made me buy the cuddy cabin style.

The boat made it to P.R. in two weeks and I was ready to fish. That year I logged in 45 days of fishing, catching a 45# white marlin as my first billfish on this boat. Yes, off course we caught many Dorados, Wahoos and Tunas but no billfish other than the little white.

In those days there were about 30 private boats fishing out of Cangrejos Yatch Club, another 20 out of the Club Nautico de San Juan and another 15 out of San Juan Marina. These private boats fished for billfish with relatively poor results. I would say that they would catch a billfish every 10 fishing days.  Out of San Juan there were four or five charter boats, among them the legendary Capt. Mike Benitez aboard the SeaBorn. They did much better than the private fleet. They would catch billfish one out of every seven or eight fishing days.

Considering the amount of billfish that go by our North coast their statistics really sucked.

I was no different, my second year I logged 64 fishing days and caught a 125# Blue, a 40# White and a sailfish we never weighted. Yes, I caught Dorados , Wahoos and Tunas, but who didn’t.

One Wednesday afternoon as I was pulling my boat out of the water I saw this 17 foot Aquasport come to shore with two Blue Marlins that could not fit in the boat. Aboard was  just one person I recognize from church, a young man from my neighborhood named Jesus , we called him Chuito and I had no clue he liked fishing.

I spoke briefly with him about his catch, and he was very casual about it. It was not a big deal.

I could not sleep that night. The thought of his catch could not let me sleep. A week went by and my uncle told me about this young man who lived in the neighboring coastal town of Vega Baja who was selling Marlin out of his beach house every weekend. He said that the young man would bring Marlins all the time and that he had a little enterprise going on

I was so impressed by my uncle’s story that I paid the man a visit.  People called him “Musin” and he lived in his parent beach house after he decided to be a fisherman even when he had graduated from College with a degree in civil engeneering.

Musin was a smart guy, maybe a year or two older than me, and had study his stuff from a scientific approach.  Musin was catching an average of 45 Blue marlins a season, all of which he would sell to individuals as well as restaurants in the area. He was fishing out of a 17 foot Mako he named  “Tirijala” and was doing better than the whole charter fleet plus all the private boats together.

 I wanted to know what he knew. So I approached him with an offer he could not refuse. I propose we wish from my boat, I would pay all expenses and he would keep and sell all the fish we caught for a year. So we did, catching 40 fish that year.  I learned to look for them, prepare the baits, tease them up, hook them, fight them with the boat, gaff them and the rest. Happy with my schooling and having developed a great friendship with him I asked him what else was there to be learned before I went out by myself. He then said that there was a man in my hometown that could catch as many marlins as he did but he could do it using light lines. This man happened to be my church going friend, the one with the 17 foot Aquasport.

With no delay, I proposed to Chuito the same deal I had offered Musin, and he accepted the deal also. That year was 1981 and we caught 43 Blues using 80, 50, 30 and even 20 pound test lines. Needless to say we fought many, many more fish that we lost because of the little tolerance to mistakes light lines will offer.

It was a new world opening in front of me. Matching my opponent by using different line classes and outfits was even more fun than the commercial style 80# test outfits used by my previous mentor.

From that point on I took care of it. I rigged my boat so I could go by myself like they did in their smaller 17 footers and had a terrific 1982 fishing by myself sometimes alone, many times with Ivette and sometimes with friends.

There was not a single year where we caught less than 30 Blues, five or six whites and a few sailfish.

Of course I started loosing more fish as I started trying to catch big ones using light lines, but my freezer and my family freezers were always full to the top no matter what.

This is how it all started… my two mentors Musing  from Vega Baja and “Chuito”  from Dorado, Puerto Rico.  One man Marlin fishing teams. Both considered as the best in the island. I am proud I learned from them and that they accepted me later as “the third one”.