Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
As hard as it is for me to type this, I am realizing that the twilight of the 2016 offshore fishing season is upon us. I know there are still many good days left before calling it quits in the canyons, but I also know that there are more days behind than ahead this season.
Looking back on the year, I am pondering on how it will be remembered. Will it be the year of the tuna? After all, the tuna fishing in the early season was spectacular on the troll, then we had some great tuna chunking in 20 fathoms in July and now the green stickers and chunkers are laying waste to the tuna population in the corner of the Washington Canyon. Or maybe it will be the year of tournament controversy? Maybe not the best way for the season to be remembered, but there were definitely some crazy endings to tournaments that have yet to be resolved.
Being President of the Ocean City Marlin Club, I would like to think that 2016 will be remembered for the good marlin fishing that started just prior to the White Marlin Open and was still going on in the Baltimore Canyon just before the arrival (and hopefully after the departure) of crappy conditions resulting from Hurricane Hermine. But I think the reality of it is that 2016 will be remembered for one thing. There is one fishing condition that has occurred more frequently in the canyons this year than I can ever remember before. Over four different decades, I can not ever recall seeing with such regularity the one thing I have constantly seen this year. The more I think about it, the more positive I am on how the 2016 Ocean City fishing season will go down in the history books. The year 2016 will forever be known as the year of the Red Fish Basket!
Yes, you read that correctly. The Year of the Red Fish Basket. I think the first I heard someone talking about a Red Fish Basket was early in July. I forget who it was, but I remember someone talking about catching a mess of Atlantic dolphinfish, or mahi mahi if you are so inclined, that were schooled up under a floating Red Fish Basket. I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but then a couple of days later I heard someone else talk about catching more of the green and yellow eating machines from the shadow of a Red Fish Basket.
What is a Red Fish Basket you ask? It is very similar to a laundry basket you keep in your wash room. It is just a perforated plastic tub used to carry shellfish and small fish on commercial fishing boats. My buddy Jimmy sorts his scallops in them when scallop season is open. I watch the guys in the commercial harbor use them to unload their catch pretty much every day that I happen to be around the docks in West OC. Heck, even the recreational fishermen use them to cart ice, or sometimes a pool noodle is fastened around the top of the fish basket to turn it into a chum pot or a live bait pen. Well anyway, after the second time I heard someone talking about catching mahi under a Red Fish Basket I made a mental note of it and waited to see if I would hear more about this new fish aggregating device.
And sure enough I did. Capt. Luke of the “C-Boys” filled his kill box with tasty mahi after he found a drifting Red Fish Basket while fishing in the Washington Canyon. That was the week prior to the Poor Girls Open. Then on Saturday of the tournament, I experienced my very first Red Fish Basket. My mate, Mr. Evans, spotted one floating near some commercial fishing gear at the tip of the Washington Canyon. Sure enough, I pulled over near it and we caught several nice mahi off of it. Later that day, I heard Capt. Daryl on the “Contango” talking about hoards of gaffers (big Atlantic dolphinfish!!) swimming around a half sunken Red Fish Basket out in the deep of the canyon. He had all he needed for his crew and was putting his location on the radio for other boats to get in on the action. Being a fan of filling my fishbox, I started heading his way. Alas, my friend, and fellow mahi enthusiast, Capt. Ryan on the “Top Dog” got to it first. Ryan had a group of lady anglers on the boat and he wore them out catching big mahi. By the time I got to that Red Fish Basket there were only a few left, but I still managed to catch a 25 pounder and a few smaller ones. If it weren’t for those two Red Fish Baskets my charter would have gone home empty handed that day.
A few days later I was getting a fishing report from my Dad since I hadn’t been to the marina that day. He told me that the crew of the “Spring Mix II” caught a load of mahi. And you guessed it, they found them under a Red Fish Basket. I ain’t kidding. Another Red Fish Basket. That was last week.
The story doesn’t stop there. This past week I had a father and son fly in from Texas for 4 days of white marlin fishing. Bruce and Kirby came into town to scratch white marlin off of their bucket list. They are working on catching one of each species of billfish, and what better place to catch Whitey than in the White Marlin Capital of the World. At the end of their first day with me we had only succeeded in jumping off one white and missed another. It looked like I was heading for a skunkeroo on the day. Thankfully, as luck would have it, I happened across yet another Red Fish Basket as we were clearing our lines, and sure enough, some day-saving mahi popped out from under it. After fishing around it, and getting the skunk out of the fish box, we decided to pack it in for the day. A few miles into the ride home I had to swerve my auto pilot to avoid yet another Red Fish Basket! Again, two in one day!!
Fast forward another two days and I was fishing down near the 461 Bump, offshore of the Washington Canyon. Bruce and Kirby had caught a few white marlin (put that check mark on the list!) when I found a weed and trash edge. Trolling down along the edge, I spied yet another Red Fish Basket. So of course I trolled past it, and boy am I glad I did!!! No sooner had the Red Fish Basket cleared under my left rigger when three decent mahi and one HUGE mahi rushed into my spread. We hooked one of the decent ones right away and then the HUGE one ate the bait on my bridge pole. An hour later, Mr. Evans put the gaff into a 51 pound bull dolphin. The biggest ever caught on the “Last Call”, Kirby’s personal best and the biggest I have been involved with anywhere other than Venezuela! I LOVE RED FISH BASKETS!!!
Now I don’t know everyone in this town, and I am sure I have not heard every fish story told on the docks this summer. So even with all the examples I have given, I have to assume there are more tales of the Red Fish Basket out there. I don’t know where they all came from. Maybe a storm washed them off of the deck of a commercial boat. Maybe a Cuban refugee raft went wrong and the remnants were carried north with the tide. I just don’t know. But I do know one thing, and that is I will always remember 2016 as the Year of the Red Fish Basket!
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
