Sol Mate

My friend Gary called and invited us to go fishing on his new boat, Sol Mate. Gary was my first client with our bidness, and we became friends in the course of a three month long environmental study of his property. During that time he replaced his older version of Sol Mate with a brand new Australian custom offshore sportfisherman to the tune of about a million point two dollars. Nice boat. So when he called Monday afternoon and invited us to go fishing for yellowfin tuna, we didn’t hesitate to accept the offer.

Gary also owns the Blue Marlin, an IGA grocery store here on the Island. In fact it’s the Islands only grocery, and in my way of thinking, the only grocery store period. It’s an institution. Over in Port Isabel there’s a new Wal-Mart super center, and an HEB, both large impersonal conglomerates, both threats to the neighborhood grocery, and consequently the community way of life. That’s why we patronize the Blue. It’s the least that I can do to try and stem the tide of faceless big business, hell bent on slaughtering the American dream. And beside, the food at the Blue is better quality and a whole lot more interesting. The store is like the neighborhood bar, everybody who works there and a lot of the patrons know who you are. So that’s where we mostly shop for groceries, it’s a comfort zone for us.

We took off about seven AM in a glassy calm morning, heading east, offshore to the continental shelf break, an area called “the canyon”, about forty miles out. Sol Mate is the perfect vessel, powered by two giant Caterpillar diesels, she makes about 30 miles per hour over the sea. D and I sat up on the flying bridge with Gary and the two other fishermen that Gray had invited to go along.

Outside the Brazos pass, the morning dawns bright, cloudless and calm, the seas placid and blue, with no hint of whitecap. We talk a little and sip hot coffee, although like any fishing trip, pleasure or commercial, there’s always a sense of anticipation and uncertainty, and maybe even a bit of anxiety. Before long we are all lost to our own wonderings, lulled into a semi hypnotic trance by the throb of the big diesels, the slicing of the boat through the gentle groundswell and the warmth of the morning sun straining to climb the blue sky. We’re on our way out, out to the kingdom of turquoise water and the giants who dwell there. There’s no telling what might happen.

I think about the different stages of this disease we call fishing. In its initial stage, you want to catch every fish in the sea. As it progresses, you just want to catch the biggest fish. In stage three, one wants to catch the most special fish, species like sailfish and marlin, tarpon, snook, bonefish, permit and peacock bass. At this point, size is pretty irrelevant. Finally there’s the last stage of the illness, where it’s simply the experience that counts, and it’s not necessary to catch anything at all. Its fishing that’s important, catching is secondary. By this time someone else catching fish, someone in a lower stage of the disease, is as satisfying as actually catching fish, because we know that this creates the collective memories we share. That’s where I am, and so I feel blessed just to be out here, a player in this collage of memories.

….Still somewhere inside each of us lurks the predatory instinct that causes us to become fishermen in the first place. It’s man against the ultimate aquatic species, and I think we hold on to the idea of catching the fish of the lifetime somewhere within the course of this lifelong disease. We hold on to the idea of the zenith of the experience. Some try and force this with expensive adventures and trips, but I think it comes without warning, striking as suddenly as the fish of a lifetime, and the odds always remain the same.


At about eight thirty we’re in deep water adjacent to the canyon. Whenever I hear that sound, the sound of big engines slowing down, an instinct takes over from past days in the Alaskan seas. I instantly jerk awake, eyes wide open, body in high speed mode, ready to put out the gear. Today is no exception. Garys’ crew, Roach and Marcos are already rigging the outriggers and the five big game rods for trolling as I descend the ladder to the fantail deck.

We choose rods, and the baits are strung out with teasers and flashing lures in between, forming the spread. I tell D, “You never know what might come up and take a hold of one of those baits, so just keep an eye on the spread. Billfish slash at the lure with their bill, they’re real easy to recognize”. Inside though, I figured we’d be real lucky to hook into some tuna or maybe a Wahoo. It’s still early for billfish, and they’re certainly not a common critter anywhere on the planet. Some people chase them for years before even getting a flash at the bait.


The other two fishermen go topside to chat with Gary on the flying bridge, D and I stay below with the deckhands watching the baits skip along just below the azure surface of the water as we troll toward the canyon, still several miles to the east. My lure, trailing along on the port side in the middle of the spread, a big pumpkin colored skirted jig snags a small floating pile of Sargassum, and Roach unclips it from the outrigger, quickly reeling the thing in, shaking off the clump of golden weed, and then lets the bait drift out behind the boat again, to its designated spot. Just as he’s doing this, I hear D shout. “Billfish”….”There’s a fish on”. A moment of immediate confusion ensues.

And then…..

An eternal moment before I realize, Holy shit.... It’s MY rod sitting in the holder on the port rail, the same lure that Roach is putting back in the spread that this fish has decided to strike. The pool cue thick rod points in an arch toward the fish, as line tears off the reel at lightening speed. We all began to bring in the other baits and teasers. I flop down in the fighting chair and Roach hands me the rod like a priest passing a sacred torch. I place the butt end into the gimbel and I hear the snap, snap of the harness securing me to the whole setup, I have become a biomechanical extension of the gear, but still a very necessary part of the equation. Now glancing down at the reel, I see that it has been heavily hit. More than three quarters of the five hundred yards of one hundred thirty pound test has been stripped, the fish a long way off and heading rapidly, south. Gary works to slow the boats forward progress as the fish continues to tear line from the reel, then Sol Mate begins to back down and I reel the line in, gaining a foot at a time, sometimes less. The morning is already becoming hot, and I have gone from zero to ninety in a heartbeat. I lift the rod slowly up and down, pumping and gaining more line, but it’s like those dreams where you’re trying to run away from something, running in slow motion, feeling like you’re encased in gelatin. Only this is real, and it hurts. Every muscle straining, aching against a mass that feels like a runaway freight train, I hang on, throat dry, clothes soaked.

About thirty minutes into the fight, the fish wallows for just a split second on the surface and dives deep again, stripping precious line from the reel. My arms ache, hands almost losing grip, I cradle the rod, hugging it close, just trying to hold on as the fish throbs and strains, seemingly oblivious to the hook, moving away from the boat in a lumbering lurching dive as Gary keeps backing down. I hear people debating the fish. “Didja see it?”, “What was it?”.. “tuna?”….”No Marlin”….”I think it might be a shark”. No, it’s a fucking MONSTER.

I don’t give a damn. By this time, I’m hurting and tired, gaining little ground. I think about quitting, just handing the rod off to someone else. The hell with it, this fish will never break the water. It’s going to be a long time till I see the swivel that marks the leader. This is stupid. I’m already scheduled for elbow surgery at the end of the week, why hurt it any worse?

But, I dig down deep and find resolve. No fish has beaten me yet, and this one ain’t gonna be the first. And I’ve caught some big ones too, fish well over two hundred pounds. But this monster is like nothing I’ve ever hooked. So I fight grimly on, sometimes only gaining six inches. I rest, the fish rests. I press on, and so does he. It’s a stubborn battle. After almost an hour, the leader comes close, and Roach grabs it. They can see the fish below, but can’t quite make out what it is., but it’s big. I kick back in the chair, taking out the slack, anticipating….anticipating, ready in case the fish decides that this really isn’t the end.

And it isn’t.

The big fish dives again, and Roach lets go of the leader. More line peels off. Determined, I fight him slowly towards the surface. I can sense his fatigue too, hanging on the end of the line. There’s no manhandling this fish. It comes when it wants to. The leader breaks the surface again, it’s too far away, so I strain to gain a little more line…..just a little more and that’s it….and the fish sounds again, but less deeply this time. The leader breaks the surface one final time, and Roach has a hold of it.

It’s a Blue Marlin. All I can see the tail and about three feet of the creature behind the boat, iridescent blue, the most beautiful blue I’ve every seen, like an electric sky, almost neon, glinting in the sun. It’s about six or seven feet long, and the crew estimates its weight at around four hundred pounds.

I hold the rod ready again, but this time Roach and Marcos have a firm grip on the bill and pinning the fish alongside the boat, they quickly dislodge the hook just as several photos are hurriedly taken. The fish lies on its side, shimmering, stunned, finning in the Caribbean blue water for a moment then suddenly it turns upright, regaining enough energy to swim slowly off, back into the blackness of the deep.

I sit there also stunned for a moment, like the fish. Shaking, soaked in sweat, muscles crying in unison, in pain, hands stiffening like two claws at the end of my spaghetti like arms, I have become a sea monster without gills, attached to the element by monofilament line, connected forever to that Marlin, the memory of the struggle indelibly etched, tattooed in my temporal lobe. Finally, I ascend the ladder to the flying bridge to thank Gary for the experience of catching the fish of my lifetime, but words could never mean enough, never be enough, never even come close, though I try. Gary understands. He too is in the final stages of the disease we call fishing.

Coming back down the ladder I thank the fish swimming somewhere down there, far below us. I glance out at the spread, once again dancing along on the waves, pulsing in the sun.