A Fish Story

Those of you who know my brother Barry, know he is an avid fisherman.  And by avid, of course, I mean RABID.  Each time he would visit, he managed to get out on a deep-sea fishing boat at LEAST twice.  I guess, being in Florida, he simply could not resist the lure of the fish.  Not that he resisted it back home in New York.  With a gleam in his eye, he told me so many stories of freezing-cold, night-time fishing trips – under what can only be described as treacherous sea conditions – just to catch bluefish.  So, yeah.  He likes to fish.  Me?  Well… I like doing things, I love being out on the water and in the sun, but fishing has never really been my thing.  But I like spending time with my big brother, and this is his thing… so, yeah, I would go with him once or twice each visit.  Now, for those who’ve participated in this activity, you fully understand the “seasickness” aspect.  I fare pretty well in that regard, coming through unscathed (mostly) about 3 out of every 5 trips. A little better than average, really.  Even salty captains get their sea legs jellied once in a while.  But I never saw Barry get sick.  Never.  Old Iron Guts told me stories of bluefish trips so rough he would bring a bit of rope to loop around the railing and hook his arm through to help keep his balance while he fished.  Trips so rough, even the crew tossed their cookies.  But not him.  He’d just take a bite of his meatloaf sandwich, watch the blood drain from his shipmates’ faces, and laugh.  But, I digress.

On this particular trip, Barry caught the black-tip shark you see in the photo.  It started like any other trip… waking up too early after going to bed too late and a couple quick cups of coffee while we made sandwiches and mixed iced tea for our thermos.  Stopping at the all-night grocery for breakfast to eat on the drive, I remember Barry getting this odd, bundt-cake shaped glazed “thing” that was marbled throughout with this God-awful pink-orange color that was just… unnatural.  I did not know why.  I opted for a simple cheese Danish.  The sun was up when we got to the boat, and by the time we got out on the water, it was a bright and hot June day.  And the sea was… choppy.  So much so that we had to brace ourselves against the railing while we fished – with some difficulty.  Regular fishing (drum, perch, trout, bee-liners) was somewhat non-existent, maybe because of the rough conditions, I’m not sure.  So the mates (the crew) began going for cobia – big, toothy fish that put up a fight.  Now see, catching cobia requires special lure rigs which the mates had in short supply but began to sell to folks who wanted  them… including Barry.

Unfortunately for me, the choppy seas had placed me on the brink of “not good.”  But, I kept fighting the good fight.  After setting up one cobia rig and dropping it into the water, Barry wedged the rod under the rail beside me and sat down on my other side, rigging a second rod.  My condition was pretty much touch-and-go when I caught sight of that damn fluorescent bundt-cake monstrosity a few feet from my face.  I guess I turned kind of green, because when I turned to scowl at Barry, he busted out laughing. It was then I realized why he bought the damn thing – and left it out in plain sight.  He never did eat any of it, the bastard.  Big brothers really do suck.  Still, my cheese Danish stayed put, at least for the time being.  (Yes, I realize that I digress again, but it’s a hard topic to avoid.  It features prominently in the experience… ask anyone who deep-sea fishes.  Three guys on this trip hurt worse than me and they were ex-Navy. )

Having just fought the last round of my bout with nausea to a draw (Barry, still laughing), I saw the tip of his fishing rod (the one at the rail) suddenly bend sharply downward.  I reacted as quickly as I could, under the circumstances, and just missed grabbing it before it slid down the rail and was jerked into the water… leaving Barry to bow his head, sigh… and give the crew $60 for the equipment.  I think what bothered him most was losing the cobia rig.  Cash he had, and there were plenty more rods, but there were only so many cobia rigs to go around.  And on that day, a cobia rig was your only ticket to action.

So we went about fishing (and by we, I mean mostly he).  A cobia, aided by razor-sharp teeth, stole Barry’s last remaining cobia rig, so what we did mostly after that was watch off-duty mates catch cobia, since they had most of the rigs.  (I think the off-duty mates knew cobia were running… that’s why they showed up to take the empty spots on the trip… and hoarded the cobia rigs).  There were a few good fish otherwise, but not too many.  After about a half hour of this, there was a yell from the other end of the boat… a fishing rod in the water was tangled in people’s lines.  As Barry hurried to the other end, the rod ducked back down out of sight, but not before he saw that it was blue… like the one he lost.  So, back to fishing, and a little while later, another yell.  This time, they were able to snag the rod and bring it aboard.  With the recovered rod in his hands, Barry made his way down the side of the boat, passing it over, under, and around others’ lines, untangling them one by one.  Finally free, no sooner was Barry’s fishing rod back in his grasp (and firmly, as luck would have it) than its tip bent violently downward – and then outward.  “It’s a shark!” yelled one of the mates, explaining that they tend to run out, not deep.

It took another 15 minutes to get that shark on the deck, making it damn near an hour since he first pulled Barry’s rod overboard.  And it wasn’t quite done fighting yet.  Tossed onto a narrow area of the deck between the side rails and the large coolers in the center (where the catches are stowed), that shark kept thrashing about as one of the mates moved into position to club it with this aluminum baseball bat they kept for that purpose.  It only got interesting after the mate’s first swing missed, spider-webbing the fiberglass molding where it hit.  I guess he hadn’t counted on missing, because he freaked out a bit on the shark’s next thrash (translation: let out a girly scream).  Then fear took over as he jumped clear and proceeded to beat the crap out of that shark until it stopped.  It was a scene, man.

At the end of the day, not only was Barry repaid his $60 (for the lost rod he recovered), he also won the pool for the day’s biggest catch… not easy on a day with a half-dozen cobia in the cooler.  He also scored the best fish story.

That night, we all feasted on grilled black-tip shark and went for a midnight swim in the pool.  And when Barry flew back to New York later that week, his luggage included a styrofoam cooler packed with dry ice and about 25 pounds of shark meat.  I imagine he pulled it from the freezer months later, well after summer had left Schenectady, and invited his friends over for a cookout.  And they were treated not only to some of the best grilled fish they’d ever eaten, but also to a bit of summer in Florida.

And one Hell of a fish story.