Article by Dale Timmons
Last week fellow CF columnist Sue Foster wrote about hooking something big while surf fishing with a Magnum Kingfish Rig. The fish ran off and ended up straightening her 1/0 hook and getting away. When she told me the story, Sue also said the fish had come up and thrashed the surface, and she thought maybe it was a spinner shark. That’s a possibility, sure, but I told her that I had also seen large red drum do that many times—make a long run, stop, then come to the surface and raise a ruckus. It doesn’t really matter what it was, however—it will always be Sue’s “mystery fish,” or one of them at least. If you fish long enough, you will have your own mystery fish, for sure. I have several, including one that dumped almost 500 yards of 25 lb. test from an Ambassadeur 10000C and left me with a burnt thumb while I was fishing one of the Virginia barrier islands many years ago. When the fish finally stopped, I couldn’t move it and eventually broke it off. It most likely was a big shark or a giant ray, but with mystery fish your mind would like it to be a big tarpon (a friend of mine caught one once on the same beach), a cobia or even the mother of all red drum. I had a similar mystery fish while fishing for puppy drum on a sandbar in waist deep water at Cape Point in Buxton, NC many years ago. This fish ran several hundred yards of line off and finally stopped, then wouldn’t budge. The tide was coming in and we had to wade through a chest deep slough to get back to the beach, plus it was getting dark, so I broke it off. A week later, the world record 94 lb. red drum was caught just a few miles up the beach, so who knows? I once had another mystery fish grab a lead head with a plastic twister while I was speckled trout fishing. I was using something like 8 lb. test, and this fish just started burning me up. Before we could pull the anchor and chase it, the hook pulled. It was probably a big striper, but who knows? A friend of mine was longlining many years ago, I think in the Washington Canyon, when something huge pulled his mainline straight down. He and the crew even attached a large poly ball and watched helplessly as it was pulled under as well. He said they tried to move this fish every way they could think of, with no success, before finally cutting it off. Was it a giant bluefin? A huge swordfish? A grander blue marlin? A 2,000-pound great white shark? The possibilities were abundant, and it has bothered him all these years. I think that’s the thing about mystery fish. They never leave you alone. In your mind, you will always wonder what that fish was. In some ways, that makes a mystery fish even more impressive than the ones we actually catch…
Is orange the new chartreuse? I don’t know if it will ever reach that lofty status, but in the last couple of years the color orange has shown up more and more on artificial lures, rigs and even “fake baits” such as the Gulp! ghost shrimp. A few years ago, one of the lures I carried to Louisiana was an orange Rapala Skitter Walk. At the time, it was new to me, and probably the only orange lure in my bag, but it worked very well on speckled trout, and I usually have it with me all the time nowadays. Several years ago a friend and I were flounder fishing in Big Ebb Drain down in Oyster, VA. He had picked up a rig in one of the local tackle stores that had some kind of small orange plastic thing just above the hook, and he was burning my butt with that thing. I never forgot it, and lately I have been tying some of my Deadly Double flounder rigs with bright orange blades and pearl and orange beads. I’ve only had time to fish the orange blades one day, but I caught half a dozen flounder on it, and other anglers have reported doing very well with the orange, including several “keepers.” Orange lures are not completely new, of course. Back when bluefish was king for spring and early summer fishing on charter boats, one of the most popular “hoochy” colors was a bright orange, and orange “sea witches” over a ballyhoo are sometimes used as an offshore combination. Why would a fish eat an orange lure or bait? The same question could be asked of chartreuse, I guess. No one really knows how fish see colors, but I am convinced they do, because as we all know on certain days certain colors will out fish all the others. Just as a shrimp’s tail naturally shows up as chartreuse, there are definitely oranges apparent in natural prey. Crabs and shrimp both have orange, for example, as does a sea robin, one of the flounder’s favorite natural foods. The eggs of a sand flea, or mole crab, are bright orange, and I’m sure there are other natural fish foods containing orange. The real answer to why a color such as chartreuse or orange works, however, may lie just in their brightness, their flash, and not in any particular natural food resemblance. All I know is that on some days, at least, orange triggers a natural feeding response. In other words, orange works, so don’t knock it until you’ve tried it…
Had a note from my friend Charles Kratz last week. Charlie wanted me to let you know that the Ocean City Marlin Club recently donated $3,000 to the Catherine and Charles Kratz Memorial Foundation to help bury three homeless U.S. veterans. Charlie is a World War II veteran himself, a member of the 101st Airborne Division. With a million dollars of his own money and over $100,000 in donations, Charlie built a Memorial Park at Druid Ridge Cemetery in Baltimore to honor veterans and provide burial space for homeless veterans and to aid needy veterans with the cost of a dignified final resting place. Charlie is getting up in years now, and he told me that his friend Pat Svehla, a former president of the Marlin Club, along with the 101st Airborne Division Association, would carry on his legacy in the future. If you are interested in helping, tax-deductible donations may be sent to: Catherine and Charles Kratz Memorial Foundation and Scholarship Fund, 10750 Guilford Road, Jessup, MD 20794…
It’s hard to believe, but next week is White Marlin Open week. Many of you look forward to fishing the tournament all year, and have done so for many years. I even heard one fellow describe it recently as “Holy Week.” Anyway, as is our custom, we’d like to wish all participants, both locals and visitors alike, good luck and fair seas. We hope you get “the big one,” or at least have a shot. Even though there is a lot of money on the line, remember that it’s all supposed to be fun, so don’t let the competition get in the way. I’ll be at the weigh station all week, and I hope to see you there, especially if you have a fish to weigh…stay safe…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
