I was going through some old photos and found this relic from the old days (taken by old friend Roy Sternberger). My buddies Warren Sellers and Luke Hoch and I went out on Luke's boat, the Caroline. We were out on a busman's holiday to catch marlin, no clients, just the three of us; ostensibly the pros were going to show everyone how it was done. It was one of those days when there was a lot going on out there, and we were seeing sailfish, dorado, etc., but we were only pulling big plugs, looking for giant marlin. We had a 50 lb. rig, two 80 lb. rigs, and a 130 lb. rig of Warren's that was basically like a broomstick with a reel on it. We were pulling a huge super plunger on the big rod, really short, maybe 6 or 8 feet behind the transom, and an assortment of large marlin lures on the other rods.As luck would have it, we came up on a school of spinner dolphin with birds working them, and set up to make a few passes kind of behind the group and out to the side. We worked this way for a short while, then moved closer to the group, figuring that we wouldn't get any bites from tuna because the lures we were pulling were too big. Right. As I can see the sequence in my mind's eye, the bites came from back to front, in fast order: first one rigger went down, then the other, then the long flat line, then the short flat line, which was the 130 lb. rig. The hole left when the super plunger was hit was like dropping a 55 gallon barrel of concrete in the water.
So here we are, 3 of us trying to figure out how to fight 4 big tuna at once. We left one rod, one of the 80's, in a rod holder in the gunwale and just let that fish do whatever he wanted. Luke grabbed one of the 80's with a fighting belt (Luke was a strapping lad), and I took the 50 to a seat Luke had on the bow with a gimbal. Warren went to the chair with the 130 and strapped himself in.
I can't remember how long we fought those fish, but my estimate would be around an hour. The first fish to come in was a 150 lb. yellowfin. We took a quick length and girth measurement and let that fish go. The next was a 180 lb. yellowfin that we put on the deck. By this time we had the other 80 out of the rod holder and the fish was still hooked up. We landed that fish, a 240 lb. yellowfin, which we put on the deck.
The last fish was the one Warren had on the 130. At one point Warren goes, "Let's see what this boy's got," and pushed the drag all the way up. He's in the chair wearing a bucket harness hooked to the reel of that 130, and I'll never forget his grin as the fish proceeded to pull him out of the chair up on his feet before he backed down on the drag. Eventually we landed that fish as well, which weighed out to be 255 lb.
Exhausted, we headed back to shore in the late afternoon rain, with thoughts of taking the tuna to Puntarenas and making some money. We actually filleted those beasts, using machetes along with knives. We put all the meat in the walk-in freezer of a friend who had just built a new hotel/restaurant. Then we went and had a few beers and had tuna for dinner and got some shuteye.
The next morning we prepared to take the fish to the tuna cannery, but when we got to the walk-in freezer we found out that the power had gone out in the night, and all we had left were several hundred pounds of dog food. Our first and last try at being commercial fishermen.
BTW, that's Warren in the yellow rain jacket, Luke squatting, and me on the left in the red jacket.
Leave a comment