"Fishing Stories
from the Caribbean"
From a Series of Short Fishing Stories
By: Capt. "Tato" Reyes
"A Two
Marlin Day"
I
have trolled for four days in a row without a strike. Actually I
am almost sure that once we went out five days in a row without
seeing a fish. Oh yes, others were catching fish around us, but
we had no strikes for that long. Then of course you had weeks
when you would catch a fish on Wednesday, another one on
Saturday and another one on Sunday.
I had days, when I had four
or five fish behind my baits, and caught none. Days with four
or five aggressive strikes and caught none of them. I remember
one day, when I fought four different marlins on 30 pound test
line and lost them all. I fought each of them for an hour or
more each.
All of these fish are
different stories and all are great situations, one way or the
other. There is nothing like the feeling or coming back to the
dock with two or even three blue marlins in your boat. It is
even better if you did it by yourself.
It was late August 1984 and
Don Jimmy had to take his wife to the doctor, Ivette had to take
care of the kids and the day was just perfect for Marlin
fishing. I made several calls even tried to lure my dad into
joining me, but in the middle of he week, it was hard to find a
partner to go fishing. So, I went by myself.
The seas were calm with just
a gentle breeze from the Northeast was not even blowing 5 miles
an hour. A bright summer day, I had great baits and the feeling
that there was a fish for me that day. It was 9:00 AM, when I
finally left the dock, and ran Northeast until I was in front of
Old San Juan. I must have been 3 miles offshore, when I started
trolling. Since I was by myself, I set an 80# test outfit in the
starboard rigger and a 50 test outfit on the same side on a
flat line behind one teaser, 20 feet behind the transom. My
boat’s helm was on the starboard side, so when fishing by
myself, that side would be my choice to set my fishing gear. I
had a one pound debonned mullet on the 80 and a horse ballyhoo
on the 50. I made both of them swim with an occasional skip
to the surface caused by steering the boat to the opposite side
or by adding a little more speed for a few seconds just to
create some effects on the baits.
When you have spent as many
hours as I have, fishing with masters of the art of trolling,
you learn their tricks or you'll never catch a fish. Hours of "mano a mano" with my mentors taught me well, as I needed to
figure out why when they where at the helm almost always, when
they had a strike. You could bet your boat, if they had the
steering wheel, their bait was always in a more favorable
position than mine. I am not going to enter into the many
strategies, that they used to beat me, but I will give you an
example. We are trolling in almost a straight line and a fish
rises behind the baits, all he would do is steer the boat so my
bait would sink and his would gain speed and skip creating
commotion and alerting the fish to it’s presence. Nine out of
ten times, the fish would hit the fast escaping bait as opposed
to the one he never noticed. You get the picture…
Back to my fishing trip, the
set up was perfect and the water was just right. I knew a big
fish was going to show up at any moment. I was right!! The
fish jumped from ten feet behind the mullet and hit it hard.
She was huge, no less than 400 pounds. I left the boat in
forward and got the rod to set the hook. That is when the flat
line started screaming like crazy. It had very little drag set,
so with my 80 pound outfit in my hands, I slammed the
drag on the 50 to the preset strike setting and moved to the
port side of the boat with my big fish. I set the 80 on a rod
holder, while I went to see what was happening with the 50. I
pulled the 50 out of the rod holder and I felt the fish. He was
running in an opposite direction than the other fish, so I knew,
it was a second fish and not a tangle. I also noticed it was
not pulling as hard. I thought, that this was the male and it
would be smaller. I recovered some line on the 50 and put it
back into the rod holder. I set the drag very lightly and went
back to the 80. The 80 had had one third of the spool left. I
sat in the chair after taking the boat out of gear and tried to
recover some line. I did get some line back and was feeling
confident. For a moment, I thought I could catch them both. I
even tried to figure out how I was going to gaff them. Since I
only had two gaffs, I thought of tail roping the small one after
I had gaffed the bigger one. I had it all figured out! The
fish, however, had other plans…
Once I had recovered some
line on the 80, I went back to my 50. The Male was just
swimming until I put on some pressure and he then he started
pulling again. I thought he was a done deal, so I went back to
my 80, just to find slack line and no fish. I recovered my hook
and a leader that looked like a spring. Bill wrapped!!! I
thought… later I learned how the leader ends up like that and it
has nothing to do with a bill wrap. So I went back to my small
male fish and I gaffed him with no problem. I was disappointed
and excited at the same time. Having the chance to fight two of
them at the same time was quite a privilege, so I was thankful
for the opportunity.
I drifted for a while, had a
sandwich and a coke and thought about the whole event and how I
would have been great to get to the dock with two fish by
myself. That is when I realized it was only 11:00AM and I had a
good chance to catch another one. This time, I put just one
bait in the water and two teasers. It used another mullet, this
time on the 50 pound outfit. I don’t think I trolled for more
than an hour when he showed up and jumped sideways all over the
mullet. I gave him a few seconds to change directions and turn
his face away from me and I set the hook. The battle was on, he
was a little bigger than the other one but he was not huge. I
knew, I could handle him and was praying he would behave so I
could catch him. He jumped a little, ran a little and sounded a
little, then he came back to the surface an showed me his
beautiful color. I put two gaffs in him in less than 40
minutes.
It was after 1 PM when I
managed to get him into the boat with the help of the gaff
lines, the boat cleats etc. One day I will explain how you do
it. I steered the boat back to Dorado with my precious cargo.
It was too early and to have people at the dock to see the
fish, but I was to tired to keep on fishing. I got back to the
dock and there was no public. So, I took the fish back to the
house hung them from the tower. This is where Don Jimmy took the
picture you see here.
I sold the two fish to a
local restaurant so I had no fish to clean. It was a great day,
a terrific experience and a wonderful picture to remind me about
this catch.
Catching two blue marlins
the same day is great, it is even better when you do it by
yourself!!!!
Two marlin days were not
common, but we had a few each year. Ivette and I even had a
three blue marlin day! I am sure I will find the pictures and I
will share the story and the picture too.
From Fishing Stories
from the Caribbean
copyright Capt Tato Reyes |
