Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
Today I drove a pickup truck load of fishing rods to the “Last Call”. It was actually the last of three pickup truck loads of fishing rods. As much pride as I feel when I look at all of the 50 plus rods neatly racked in my garage, I get a much better feeling when the last of them is hanging in its proper place aboard my boat. Once they are all in their designated spots, I feel like I am that much closer to putting them to good use. After all, what good is a fishing rod when it is racked in my garage? Fishing rods belong on boats, or at least on or near the water!
When I was a younger man I spent my winters traveling to exotic places chasing billfish. One of my favorite t-shirts at the time had the following saying on the back, “There is No Off Season”. And back then, for me at least, that was the truth. I was fishing somewhere around 200 to 250 days a year and a majority of the other days were spent working on or traveling on boats. I finally decided it was time to stay home more when one of my favorite bartenders informed me that I had just ordered a beer in Spanish, which wouldn’t have been so bad other than I was sitting at Harborside on a Saturday night in West Ocean City. Yup, it was definitely time to settle down a little bit.
That was close to 20 years ago. In the winters since then I have tried to fish as much as possible. The first few years after I was “done traveling” I still managed to spend close to 2 months in warm places chasing fish with pointy noses. I freeloaded on a boat called the “Ravenous” in Venezuela for all of October and half of November during my very first “off season”. And then I went back to it sometime that winter to help take it from Aruba to Cancun. That took two weeks due to bad weather, and some good drinking, in Aruba. The following year, I made a few trips to Venezuela. It might have been 2 or 3 years afterwards that I made my first trip to Costa Rica by boat. I had been to Costa Rica one time when I was a little kid, but that involved multiple flights and a couple of trains and buses. The second time was much more fun. I was helping a couple friends of mine take a 65-foot Viking called the “Wired” from Cabo San Lucas down to Los Suenos. That trip entailed visiting several ports in Mexico and a quick stop in Guatemala before settling in at Los Suenos for a few days of sailfishing before I had to fly home. But I liked it so much that I flew back a month later and stayed for ten days. I guess I have visited Costa Rica 4 or 5 times since then. Some of my other winter “off season” getaways have included the Galapagos, Australia, Islamorada and Cancun. I also spent 6 “off seasons” giant bluefin fishing in Morehead City, North Carolina. But for the past 3 or 4 years I have only fished a couple days at most in the winter.
This year I did not fish at all. For the first winter since 1991 I did not touch a fishing rod from the time I racked all of the rods in my garage until I started putting them back on the “Last Call”. I was supposed to go out with Capt. John Oughton on the “That’s Right” in Islamorada back in December but I am a fair-weather fisherman and it was quite breezy while I was down there. So even though my Father can be a bit of a nuisance when he starts asking me to bring the rods back to the boat so he can give them their annual start of season service, I did it with a smile. I even smiled when he called me to tell me he had room for one more in the boat racks after I took that last load to the marina today. I went out to the garage and picked up one of our spares and put it in my truck and made one more trip back to the marina.
By this weekend all of our rods and reels will be freshly cleaned up and lubed. All of our other spring time projects have been done for a while, so now I am counting the minutes until I can get this “Off Season” over with.
I look forward to sharing more Fish Stories with you throughout the summer. I want to thank Larry and the rest of the Jock Family for having me back as a columnist this year. Hopefully along the way we will share some laughs, rehash some good memories and maybe learn a trick or two. I welcome any feedback or questions you have. Hit me up on Facebook or chase me down on the docks and I will be glad to chat with you.
In closing this week I want to say a huge THANK YOU to Fishermen United of Ocean City for their quick response when the town thought about eliminating the $5,000 prize money for the “First White Marlin of the Year”. I would also like to thank the Mayor and the Ocean City Town Council for reconsidering their decision and keeping the prize money in play. Next week, I will talk more about the First White Marlin of the Season. You might find this hard to believe, but I have a story or two about that fish as well!
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
