Big Bend Sportsman Guide Fishing Stories
"Stories from the
Caribbean"
From a Series of Short Stories
By: Capt. "Tato" Reyes
The Young Man
and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway in his novel The Old Man and the Sea
described the struggle between Santiago, “the old man” and “the fish”;
a thousand plus pound Blue Marlin off the Coast of Cuba. The fight
went on for days and even when the old man defeated the fish, Mother
Nature defeated the old man.
I do not pretend to write
at Hemingway’s level, but I have a story I would like to share with
you in a somewhat similar vein.
We left our homeport of
Dorado, Puerto Rico on the central north shore of the island one
gorgeous Saturday morning close to 9:00 AM. All the commercial
fishermen were long gone by the time we left the dock. Our plan was to
take advantage of schooling skipjack tunas close to shore and rig them
live for Blue marlin bait. In those days we had no tuna tubes and my
25 foot Aquasport had no wash down pump so we needed to catch, rig and
put our bait in the water as quickly as possible. Catching bait half a
mile offshore presented the problem of trolling that bait at 2 knots
all the way to Marlin grounds another mile offshore. It might not
seem too difficult but the many barracudas in those waters loved an
easy breakfast. Our first attempt was good, we only lost one of the
two baits we had and made it to the Marlin waters with a nice 4-pound
skipjack.
We could not have asked for
a prettier day. The wind was from the south, which made the water on
the north side of the island flat as a pancake, an unusual
occurrence. The breeze made it cool enough and the occasional cloud
gave us a respite from the sun.
I headed to my favorite
area trolling just the one bait rigged New Zealand style on a 14/0
Stainless Steel Mustad Tuna hook. I saw a frigate bird working the
surface right in front of me and steered the boat in its direction.
Suddenly the bird climbed up high in the sky and I lost it in the sun.
We were both looking for the bird when we saw an explosion with our
peripheral vision right behind the boat where our bait was supposed to
be. It was like someone had dropped a jeep in the water from 100 feet
high. At the same time the clicker on our only rod started
screaming. I got to the rod, climbed into my fishing chair, set up
my harness, set the drag to my normal 19 pound strike setting and the
fight was on.
My fishing buddy for many
years was at the helm, I was using first class 80lb test tackle with
brand new line, … and I was set. This was going to be another caught
marlin in no time.
Of course none of us saw
the fish, we were to distracted looking for the frigate bird and only
saw the splash he made when he hit the bait.
The first run was not an
impressive one, she took out 150 to 175 yards of line and we recovered
them in no time by chasing her with the boat. Still so deep we could
not see her; she gave another run which was very similar to the first
one. We thought, she is hurting and will give up any time. Once again
we were right over her when she decided to take another run of the
same magnitude keeping herself about 100 feet deep and never allowing
us to see her. After five of these short runs we came close to the
fish enough to see she was not just an average July fish. Deep into
the blue water, we could see a dark silhouette that was longer than
any we had encountered before. The huge fish was not showing any
signs of color (meaning she was swimming, not tired and showing her
silvery side). By now I have been over two hours fighting the fish at
19# of drag and it was clear I was not hurting her. Sometimes I
questioned if she was realizing I had her on my line, I wondered if
she knew she was hooked.
I told my friend that I
was going to increase the drag and asked him to secure me to the chair
with a line we had for my wife, Ivette. I brought my drag up to 25
pounds and put a couple of leg pumps into the fish. I think that is
when she realized she was hooked and she got really mad.
She came straight up out
of the water no more than 100 feet from the boat. The fish cleared the
water by 6 feet, her massive body creating another large splash in
front of us. We were speechless for a moment. When we recovered from
the sight, we got to work and chased the marlin, now greyhounding away
from us at high speed.
We paired up with her and
continued the pressure at 25 pounds of drag. This last run and all
that jumping seemed to hurt her a little bit but she would not let me
control her. She was doing whatever she wanted and we would react to
her actions.
Four hours into the fight
I started feeling really tired and gave up the rod to my friend. He
had been on the radio with our friends at the clubhouse who by now
were making fun of me. I was being called all kinds of names when I
came to the radio and ask one of them to get in the boat and come out
here and stay long enough to see the fish and see that she was real
big and I that it was not me. The fish hit the bait at 9:45AM, it was
4:30PM now and she was giving no signs of getting tired.
My friend cranked up the
drag to 25 pounds (he is a bigger guy) and started pumping on the
fish. For the first time in a while I felt we had a chance to catch
this fish. We made steady progress on the fish for at least 45
minutes. I was backing up on the fish and he was recovering line.
It was then when we saw a
boat approaching ours, it was some of our friends from the clubhouse
that decided to jump in the boat and join us. They wanted to laugh at
me because I needed to give up on the fish.
They approached our boat
from the side and watched us fight the fish for a few minutes…like I
said we were making progress and there was that excitement in the
air…with the flying gaffs ready, tail rope coiled and both of us ready
to jump at the fish the moment it gave us a chance.
It was then when she
decide to reveal herself to all of us. The line started to run away
from the boat, imminent signal of a surfacing fish and she broke the
surface 50 feet away from our transom. She cleared 10 feet in the air,
and was every bit of 1000 pounds, and then some. Yes, she was the
biggest fish we have all seen. She must be a grander, we all agreed.
Now our knees were shaking and we broke in a severe sweat. Two of our
friends jumped into our boat to help with the beast and the radio was
letting everyone know what was happening with Tato’s fish.
In less than 15 minutes we
had four boats around us, always keeping distance to prevent causing
any problems with the fish. They brought cameras and spotlights; based
on what they heard over the radio we could be there for a while.
The fish kept on fighting
like we just hooked her. She made several greyhounding dashes of 150
yards with majestic vertical displays of power and stamina. It has
been 7 hours since we hooked her and she was giving no signs of
loosing control or giving us any credit for our efforts. At least I
had witnesses that were about to see the second fisherman give up
after three hours on the rod.
It was 6:00 PM when I took
over the rod again; I brought the drag back to my usual 19# and
prayed. That was all I could do, because she was in control the whole
time, we were just chasing her.
I prayed for her not
decide to sound for there was no way to follow her and she would spool
my 80# class Penn International in a few minutes. She never did. She
fought at the surface until dark giving us a final display of her
grandeur in a series of vertical acrobatics suitable for a 50#
sailfish, not for a 1000-pound plus Blue Marlin.
Close to 9:00 PM the fish
broke loose. The 400# test leader wore through during the fish’s
desperate struggle to free herself from us.
It was a silent trip back
to shore, not a word was said over the radio, and no more jokes were
heard. We all went home in silence. The fish won. For days no one
wanted to talk about the fish, it was like out of respect for our
efforts and the agony of loosing the fight after all that time.
As I think back on this
event, the pain of losing the fish has been replaced by gratitude to
have the opportunity to meet such a sea-monster and the honor of
fighting her. The long struggle is one I will always remember and
cherish. Perhaps we shall meet again….
From a series of fishing
stories submitted by Capt Tato Reyes
copyright Capt Tato Reyes
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