Sometime in 2003
I woke up to 6-8 foot swells on what before was placid water in the Mar de Cortez. We must have moved to the Pacific side. Everything in El Budster that wasn' t secured was flying around the cabin. Bottle caps, hooks, lures, sun block, hats, peanuts, sunglasses all leaped off table tops and floated around the cabin like a scene from a spacecraft.
Armando, the first mate, was scrambling down the ladder from the bridge so I knew something was up. There had been no action, nothing, for 2 hours. He throws a line over the side with an 8" live mullet on a big hook. After a pause of about 3-4 minutes he then goes into a FRENZY to set the hook. This was the same pattern as before with the shark that Scott caught, so I figured something medium sized. I get up and go sit in the fighting chair expecting to start reeling in the goddamn dorado that I had in my mind’s eye. Some nice food fish to bring back to Austin and cook up and impress family and friends. So Armando gives me the rod and starts yelling in my ear: REEL REEL REEL. The captain is up on the bridge and he is yelling too, DONT GIVE ANY SLACK, REEL REEL REEL.
Don’t give any slack? Why is he yelling this? I know what to do. What slack? There was NO slack in the line, in fact I was doing everything to keep from getting pulled in. So I reeled, but it was hard. It took me a minute to do one revolution of the reel. Like I had hooked an underwater cable or something.
REEL REEL REEL.
The boat is pitching, and turning. My two buddies, Scott and James, are now out of sight and mind. I hear one of them fall over some stuff in the cabin as the boat keeps pitching (remember the 6-8 foot seas?). He swears.
Then, about a seven-iron shot from the boat, up it jumps. A big bill-fish. I can’t believe that that fish, so far away, is what I have on my line. And it's a marlin, no doubt about it. This was the last thing I expected to catch. So now I’m Hemingway……
Armando shouts in my ear, bringing me back from Key West: REEL REEL REEL. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. More waves are hitting the side of the boat, pitching the boat hard. So I reeled. Then the fish took some line out. STOP STOP DONT REEL (I knew that, but I was so excited, I was reeling against the drag, grinding the gears on the reel). More reeling, and then the fight. Pull back on the rod (about a 5’ trolling rod, with a Penn 550 reel, 80 lb test), and reel it down. Pull back and reel down. Puuuuulll back and reeeeel it down. Puuuuulll back and reeeel it down. I am turning the handle maybe two revolutions tops, on each one of these pumps, which brings the fish in maybe three yards each time. I am exhausted. My arms are really tired and aching. I can hardly turn the handle. Despite all the excitement and the beauty of this moment, my mind is wandering.
The engine noise is loud, then growls low as the captain maneuvers the boat. (“Relax,” he yells above the engine noise, “this usually takes an hour or an hour and a half.”). Great, I'm all in at this point ready to give up and now I find out I have another hour to go. There is something burning in the pit of my stomach, I ignore it.
Then the fish runs AGAIN. And he runs like a sonofabitch and the reel is furious, and the line is tailing off hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds. Thank God, I think, because now I can relax my left arm which is cramping up and I am in danger of giving up the fight. The fish stops his run.
REEL REEL,REEL,REEL and pullllllll and reel down. More of this action and I bring the fish back to the boat by degrees. About 20 minutes later we see the fish in the water, about 15 yards off the stern. I can’t believe it. He is beautiful, a flash of silver and blue just beneath the surface and then breaching the dark blue of the Pacific water. I can look right into his eye. But he sees us too and dives. Line is screaming off the reel now. Water is spraying off the line, giving the impression is that the line is on fire and it’s smoking. There is heat coming off from the reel due to the friction and I think of Quint in Jaws when he makes Chief Brodie ladle water on his reel to keep it cool.
When the line stops, I start to try to reel again. It feels like a 20 ton rock on the end of the line because I am getting nowhere. Suddenly everybody is yelling. REEL REEL REEL. Fight Fight Fight. Puuuuuull and reeeel. Puuuuull and reeeel. This is critical because any slack and the fish will lose the hook. My mind is trying to concentrate. I am fighting with all my might to stay in the game with this fish (I have nearly quit twice already) and keep my mind from wandering (will I want a plain Pacifico or a michelada when I get back to the hotel?). The captain guns the engine and the boat backs up a bit to give me leverage to pull the fish back in (the captain has been working the boat all over the place to give me an angle). An 8 foot wave comes at us and the boat goes at it as I gird myself in anticipation of a violent collision. We hit the wave, stern first. BAM, like a giant explosion. The wave crashes over me, Armando, my two buddies, and floods the cabin. We are briefly standing in a foot of water before it drains back to the sea. Again I think of Captain Brodie in Jaws after he sees the great white shark for the first time. "We're gonna need a bigger boat," he says. (NO TE PREOCUPES AMIGO, DESPUES NOS BANAMOS Armando yells in my ear.)
I am now reeling, and fighting, reeling and fighting. We can see the fish again. Another wave comes over the boat. Everyone is soaked. Everything is pitching back and forth, tackle, beer bottles, and candy wrappers are flying around the cabin. Lots of yelling from everybody. I stand up and work the damn fish close to the boat. I'm tired, he's tired. We pull it up adjacent to us. What a magnificent creature: sleek, wet, and silver. Built for speed and power. I weakly hold out the sail, while the mate holds him by the bill. Photo.
The Captain asks if I want to keep him. I chose to release him, let him fight another day and give someone else a thrill they won’t forget. It's the least I can do for the amount of pleasure and excitement he gave me. I will remember him for the rest of my life. So, we let him go, and hoist the red flag with a "T" signifying catch-and-released marlin.
Hand shakes and congratulations all around. We see two more marlin on the surface a little later that day. My other fishing buddies failed to keep them on the line (we hooked both). Also saw a couple of whales earlier in the day......
