We set our alarms for 3:30AM. I woke up at 3:10. Darryl had woken up at 2:45. We were rarin’ to go.
I had a bowl of crunch berries, some coffee and a swig of rum on the way out the door. Ben drove.
We arrived at the marina in Wanchese at 5:15, fifteen minutes early for our planned 5:30 departure. Someone asked if it was okay to smoke on the boat. Scott, the first mate, told us that everyone in the Carolinas is either a smoker, or a former smoker, also known as a hypocrite. He said he was a hypocrite. We all had one before setting off. Yes, I know I quit last week, but we could DIE on this excursion!
As we headed out across the sound, we marveled at how smoothly the big 46′ boat was handling, and patted ourselves on the back for not going with one of the smaller charters in the 20-25′ range. As soon as we crossed under the Hatteras bridge, the swells got higher and the motion began. The captain had picked a spot about two hours out, and the first casualty happened shortly before we arrived. Yes, I’ll admit it. I was the first to hurl. But I knew the other guys were thinking about it, because Darryl looked at me wistfully, hopefully, and asked, “Do you feel any better?”
“Much!,” I replied, secretly as wistfully and hopefully as he was looking at me. I was trying to be an optimist, and really, you do feel a little better just after you hurl.
We settled into the spot, referred to by the first mate as 650, about 7 miles north of the point. He described it as a crack in the wall and a big dropoff, and later explained that it’s a bittersweet spot. When the seas are rough, the bait is pushed up against the wall and the big fish that feed there go after it. On a perfectly calm day, nothing will bite. This was not a perfectly calm day at 650.
The waves were higher than the main part of the boat at times, maybe 10-12 feet. The boat would go up and down front-to-back, and sometimes would slide down a wave sideways, swinging us sideways with it 45 degrees in each direction. It was rough. The only thing rougher was when we had to go into the cabin to retrieve something, or, god forbid, into the head. Don’t ever go into the head on rough seas. That’s my advice to young readers. Just don’t do it. Go before you get on board. Hold it. Do whatever is necessary.
The first bite came. The mate said “Someone sit in the chair.” Nobody moved. Nobody was feeling too adventurous at the moment. I was about to, when he said we had lost it. He re-rigged the line and I hung around near the chair feeling brave and hopeful. It wasn’t long after when another strike hit. “OK, someone sit down,” he said again. The guys agreed, and I jumped into the fighting chair. He put the rod into the mount and had me start cranking. I cranked for quite a bit, it was a lot harder than I had expected, and I had not properly prepared my right wrist for this kind of activity. I’m not sure exactly how I would prepare for it. I eventually got it close enough in, and it turned out to be an absolutely beautiful sailfish, about 60 lbs., they estimated. Sailfish apparently is trophy, not food, so we released it, but not after getting a few pictures.
I had never caught a fish that big, so I was ecstatic. Immediately after everything calmed down and the fish was released, I had my second wave of hurling. I was busy hurling off the back of the boat, and didn’t notice the activity going on on the boat until I was “finishing up” — that means cleaning off and trying to put my manly game face back on — I realized another line had hit. Then I realized two had hit. This clearly meant I had to be involved. Because if you’re not cranking line when there’s a catch, you’re the guy who stands behind the fella in the fighting chair, pointing his chair in the right direction so that he’s always facing the fish dead on.
So there I was, prepared to assist in any way necessary, recovering from hurling. Ben was in the fighting chair and Darryl was moving toward the other hit rod. Halfway there, Darryl realized he was too sick to pull it in. I was still exhausted from my previous catch and from heaving over the side, but somebody had to crank that sucker in, so I leaned on the side wall and started cranking. The fish crossed paths, which is always a risk with multiple lines out, and the lines became tangled, so the mate had to try to help bring both of our fish in while detangling the lines at the same time. Hard work, but he performed admirably. Mine came in first, with a lot of work and more than a little bit of pleading. “Please don’t stop cranking,” he’d holler. “I’m cranking with all I got, but I ain’t got much left,” I’d respond, cranking just a tiny bit harder. Eventually we pulled that one in, and it was a glorious 56 lb. yellowfin tuna. This is one of the prizes we had set out to catch, because yellowfin tuna is some good eats. We got that sucker into the cooler and the mate went back to work helping Ben get his catch in and detangling. I alternated helping with the detangling, heaving and swiveling Ben in the fighting chair. This went on for about a half hour. I was standing behind Ben saying, “it’s close, this is the promised land!” The Mate told the Captain it was a bigeye (bigeye tuna), and the Captain seemed pleased. When it got close enough, the Captain himself came down to assist with the gaffing of this monstrous beast. Ben’s hard work was justified. This beast weighed in at 132 lbs. It was a beauty. Everyone was happy. We made the group decision (OK, I egged it on) to head back in to calmer waters, as we couldn’t be useful for much longer as sick as we were, and Ben was beat after that battle with the bigeye.
Ben sat in that fighting chair for half the ride back to the marina. It was as if the fish had pulled all the fight out of him. Most of us felt a lot better once we reached the flat waters.
A few hours later, we pulled into the marina. The mate raised the upside-down sailfish flag to indicate to onlookers that we caught a sailfish and released her. A small crowd gathered at the berth to ogle our catch. They seemed pleased with the bigeye, we were probably the first vessel back for the day. Maybe we could have caught more and maybe we would have gone dry, we’ll never know. We had the fish cleaned, paid our bill and headed out. In total, we left with 90 lbs of cleaned tuna meat in the coolers, which is far more than we needed. That’s 30 lbs per family.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Hope I didn’t miss much.
REVISION: We also happened upon a pod of pilot whales out there. None of us had what it would have taken to get up, grab a camera and get pictures of them. Trust me, I have no need to make this up.
r
