11/13/2024
So here is story #1:
The captain is talking about the Nelson County boys. “I first met them through Kim, right after he had moved to the beach. And we had become good friends. They were quite the group - staying in the campground, sleeping in their cars but I don’t think much sleeping had actually taken place. They enjoyed any and all forms of chemical substances that had pleasing effects on the human body. They wanted to go fishing with me. As as they boarded the boat I was introduced to them. Some of them had what appeared to be appropriate nicknames for wide open guys who had met in college in the early ‘70s: Doc, Fuzzy, Danny, Billy, Vance, Donnie. They reminded me of the 7 Dwarves…you know, very industrious and living together in the mountains.
For some reason I immediately took a liking to them. They just seemed to be cool guys, honest guys, no bu****it people. I don’t think we had a particularly good catch that day but their enthusiasm for just being on the ocean was genuine, a trait I admired and appreciated. So many of the people I took to the Gulf Stream didn’t seem to appreciate all that can be experienced out there; you know they always gauged the trip, the adventure, solely by how many pounds of fish they brought back to the dock. I mostly feel sorry for those people. Having guys who truly value all that the ocean has to offer makes my job worth it.
Around dark, after we had gotten in and gone home, Kim brought them to the trailer I was currently living in to discuss an idea they had come up with. Basically they wanted to go out the next day but they didn’t have quite enough money to pay for it. I didn’t have a trip for that day (actually that particular time in my life I didn’t have a lot of trips at all) but I really liked these guys and I really really liked fishing. When you are hungry, a half a loaf looks pretty good! So I told them to meet me in the morning at the boat and we would try our luck; in retrospect I am so glad I did that. I don’t remember if we caught many fish or not but it was a pretty day and I got to know these fascinating men a little better.
The most intense fellow in the group Danny turned out to become one of my best friends. Danny was is a beer drinking Marlboro-smoking genius who could build or fix most anything. The most easy-going, self-effacing, best person I have ever met. Danny was average height for a man but that was the only thing average about him. There was no fat on Danny. He drank a Pepsi an hour when it was hot and a cup of coffee an hour when it was cold and ate only one huge meal a day in the evening after work. Danny was powered by ni****ne, caffeine and sugar. His work was building stuff - houses, repairing whatever needed it; he was an artist as well. His work was indescribable, meticulous, and beautiful. But that’s for another story and needs pictures to go with it because nobody would believe some of it unless they saw it. Danny was energetic. That word is inadequate so an example is in order. He told me that in building his first house, a good-sized brick rancher, he decided to go non-electric. I thought he meant that it had nothing run by electricity in it, but no. He built it without any tools run by electricity. Whenever I needed help in a big way, Danny appeared; it was a long drive from Nelson Co to Hatteras but it seemed like nothing to Danny when something needed to be done for me.
With a fish on the line, he would sit in the fighting chair, that greying ponytail flying under his baseball cap, Marlboro in his teeth, grinning at the same time, and crank. Danny rode along on the bridge with me on my trips to the Gulf Stream as often as he could and we shared many adventures, both good and bad.
As our friendship developed, I realized Danny’s dream was to catch a blue marlin. One of my great desires was to make this happen. On more than several occasions during the course of every year, just me, Danny, my mate, and sometimes somebody hanging around the dock who wanted to go, would put to sea to try to fulfill our quest. Some days we caught a lot of dolphins, tuna, wahoos, even sailfish and white marlins, but never a blue one. Some days we didn’t catch anything. We had raised many, many blue ones; some we hooked and some we didn’t. It seems like for whatever reason the ones that we did hook always got away. Two particular encounters will always stay in my mind.
The first one was a particularly spectacular weather day. Unfortunately, the current was running hard and nothing seem interested in our baits so we wandered off past the thousand fathom curve. My mate had gone below to use the head, crazy Carl (who had come by the night before and expressed an interest in riding along and who just barely missed being too crazy for me to tolerate being around) was in the salon taking a nap. Danny had gone to the corner of the cockpit to relieve himself over the side. He was not quite finished when a 400 pound blue marlin errupted on the bait not thirty feet from where Danny was standing.
Seemingly well hooked, the fish went off on a spectacular aerial rampage behind the boat. It pulled immense amount of line off of the reel, Danny took the rod from the holder and unaided got in the fighting chair. This fish was not going to submit easily but neither was Danny. The ensuing battle ebbed and flowed. As soon as Danny would get the upper hand the fish would once again rush off in a jaw dropping display of ferocity.
By and by the fish sounded and stayed deep, preferring to fight it out from below. Danny applied maximum pressure, gaining line a few precious inches at a time. After about an hour of this back and forth, the fish could be seen in the water just a few yards from the boat. As my mate was reaching for the leader, the hook pulled out of the fish’s mouth.
It would be hard to tell which of the participants was more stunned. The fish, with its dorsal fin out of the water, just stayed where it was. Danny, exhausted from the battle, could only stare speechless at the slowly receding apparition as the marlin sank out of sight. The mate busied himself setting the baits back out, Carl went back to the salon to finish his nap and Danny just set there in the chair smiling. I don’t remember exactly what I was doing but I do remember thinking to myself, “Damn that was fun but we will get the next one.”
The second time that sticks in my mind would not be as much fun. I was booked for The Big Rock blue marlin tournament (a huge deal—hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money on the line). The day before, we spent readying our tackle and replacing line on our reels. Danny was not fishing the tournament but he was going to ride along several days during the week. I had an open day and the southwester that had been blowing for a week was predicted to diminish during the afternoon so we decided to kill two birds with one stone. We would continue Danny’s quest while we scoped out the area I intended to fish the next day.
The ocean was very rough; I wanted to fish south of the inlet so we had proceeded at a slow speed to conserve fuel and keep the boat and ourselves from becoming injured. As we reached the hundred fathom curve, I turned the boat down sea and we put the baits in the water. As promised, the wind was dying out and the ocean was bursting with life. A more likely place to encounter a marlin was rarely seen.
We caught a few dolphins, a white marlin, and a pair of wahoos. I had seen what I was had hoped to. We missed a pair of white marlins and I was turning to circle on them when a real nice blue marlin sailed in under the right rigger, crossed our wake, and smashed the right rigger.
A lot of times as these things go a marlin will pull several hundreds yards of line off the reel, going deep. Once it fully determines that something here ain’t right it will start mind numbing maneuvers to truly try to escape. Little marlins get to be big marlins by doing these mind numbing maneuvers under the water rather than on top.
This fish, well over 500 pounds, apparently never heard of this and stayed on top, carrying on for a long time. Fortunately, it generally stayed in a defined area and didn’t just beat feet in a straight line away from the boat. It turned parallel to the boat about half a cable length away.
I will make this short. Danny did everything right. The mate did everything right. Hell, I even did everything right but the fu***ng brand new line broke when the fish was just up under the rigger. And just like that, our best, and as it turned, out our last chance paddled off into the blue oblivion of the deep!! I am waxing poetic now but I can assure you what I was thinking and what I was saying was not poetic in the least. The silence was broken only buy the drone of the engine and my mate stripping the brand new line from the reel. We fished our five days of the tournament and never saw a marlin of any description.
Not long after that as I was leaving the ship’s store, a new shipment of T-shirts were being put on display. One of the shirts had a beautiful depiction of a blue marlin on it with the words, “Lines break hooks pull and s**t happens.” I bought it immediately. Of course I gave the it to Danny. I don’t know if he still has it or not.
We were much older than when we started Danny’s quest and my back was slowly giving out. I was considering stepping off the bridge. My mate was ready to move on and command his own vessel. With all things considered I thought it would be best if I turned the ole girl over to him and pursued other avenues. One thing I guess I learned from all this is you can’t always get what you want but I will tell you that anyone in their right mind would want Danny for a friend and the quest is just as important as the goal.
