Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
By the time you will be reading this the fishing buzz around town will be centered on the Ocean City Marlin Club “Heels and Reels” Ladies Tournament and final preparations will be underway for the biggest of them all, the White Marlin Open. This issue will have pictures of the winning fish from the Huk Big Fish Classic Tournament throughout its pages. The summer is definitely flying by!
Over the course of the season so far I have done my best to get my column emailed off to Larry in a timely manner. Faithful followers of Fish Stories know that historically speaking I am not always successful in that department. Last week I clicked send sometime Wednesday evening (deadline is Thursday afternoon, so that was pretty good, and rare for me). It is currently Friday morning…. OOOPS!!! Too much fishing and marine surveying this week.
My long time readers are also aware that my old buddy Jocko (man I miss him every day) would administer varying levels of punishment to me depending on the severity of my tardiness in getting my Fish Story to his inbox. The disciplining ranged from minor beatings to public humiliation. One time I even had to trot him up and down Coastal Highway in a rickshaw!
You may be wondering how my new boss handles my procrastination. Let me put it this way. Removing a filet knife from my truck tire and having to swap a flat out for my spare before heading into town to get a breakfast sandwich this morning was not how I planned to start my day. Message sent and received Mr. Budd, sir.
After I finally made it over to Anthony’s at 17th Street for my scrapple, egg and cheese sandwich I was hurrying home to get to my desk so I could start typing when my cell phone began to buzz. Looking at the caller ID it was my buddy John Prather of Ocean City Guide Service. I answered the phone to see what he was up to. I figured he was out fishing-that dude doesn’t miss too many days. Sure enough he was on his way out with a party. He was calling to let me know that he had left some bullet bonito in a cooler for me in the back of his truck. You see, yesterday while we were chatting on the radio I requested any extras he might catch during the day. They make good bait, either cut up or whole, for anything from mahi to sharks. You can never have too much fresh bait, especially when the fishing is good!
As I was thanking Prather for his contribution to my future fishing I had to relay a funny bait related story to him. About a week and a half ago some friends of mine were fishing on the charter boat “Talking Trash” out of the Ocean City Fishing Center. They had caught a nice blue marlin that had unfortunately died while they were fighting it. This happens from time to time. Being responsible sportsmen, they brought the fish in and had it cut up and were distributing bags of marlin to the folks around the marina. I happily accepted a bag. Smoked blue marlin is exceptional table fare, and it is not too often I get the chance to have any these days. I packed the bag in the ice chest on the Last Call so I could take it to the smoker when I got in from fishing the following day.
Fast forward to the following day. I was trolling along the hundred fathom line checking out the commercial fishing gear to see if any mahi were hanging around the floating markers. On our trips up to that point the poly balls marking the bottom traps had been barren. Not that day though! I think it was the fourth or fifth float I passed that had a good quantity of small to medium mahi on it. Due to the prior poor fishing my mate, Mr. Evans, was caught a little unprepared in the cut bait department. After a couple of laps around the ball I could see that his bait cooler was taking a beating, and the mahi were winning the battle so far, so I pulled away a little bit and called him up to the bridge. I instructed Mr. Evans to cut a slab of meat off of my future meal in the ice bin and to use it for cut bait. A few minutes later the mahi were stacking up in the kill box. Oh the irony!!! One of the main meals on a Marlin’s menu is the mahi mahi. On this day the tables were turned. In my thirty plus years in the charter business I can honestly say that I have never used blue marlin as a bait for anything…. let alone for mahi.
Prather and I had a good laugh about this and I thanked him for helping me out in the fresh bait department. My charters over the next few days thank him too, even if they don’t know it yet. And at least this way, if I happen to get lucky enough to get any more fresh Marlin for the smoker, I won’t have to share any with Mr. Evans, and definitely not for bait!
