Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
I spent a little bit of time this morning going through one of my ancient fishing picture photo albums. A real photo album. Not something I could click on my Facebook profile and find. An honest to goodness photo album. The kind with pages turned yellow from age, faded pictures, broken bindings and worn out adhesive backing. Pretty much it was falling apart.
I was looking for one specific cut out from an old Coastal Fisherman, and of course I couldn’t find it. I can picture this clipping in my mind very clearly. It was taken in the spring of 1988 if I remember correctly. Maybe ‘89. But I am pretty sure it was ‘88. Dad, since I am sure you are reading this, go get the log book out and look for the day I am talking about. Let me know exactly when it was so I can tell everybody next week. (Editors note: We located the picture in our 1989 archives and you can see it on right). The picture was of my Mom and me, holding a skipjack tuna and a small mahi mahi. Actually it was small enough that it probably only warranted one mahi. The caption of the picture started with the words “definitely unusual for May.”
Nowadays, unless the fish were caught during a kids tournament, or in the bay, a picture of a skipjack and a mini mahi making the Coastal Fisherman would be unusual. But this picture was kind of a big deal. Well, maybe not a BIG deal, but it was significant.
You see, back in the 80s you seldom saw pictures of offshore/bluewater fish in the early season issues of the Coastal Fisherman. There are probably several reasons for this. And before anyone says global warming, let me tell you that we were fishing a warm eddy of water in a canyon (again, Dad will need to look up where exactly we were because I don’t remember). In the modern era of fishing we don’t consider heading out without looking at up-to-the-minute satellite imagery of sea surface temperatures, online images of the factors that influence water color and currents and multiple internet weather guessing sites. There are plenty of tools in our tool box. Well, back in the 80s the sea surface temperature technology was just starting to become available in the recreational fishing market. One of the early providers was Capt. Len Belcaro of Offshore Services up on the northern Jersey Shore. Len put together a weekly fishing dirt sheet that was mailed to subscribers and this included fishing reports and some of these satellite images. On a side note, that flyer kept growing over time and is now known as the Big Game Journal, one of the premier fishing magazines in the country. Usually his report would arrive on Thursday and the sea temperature data would be a week or more old. Since it was May and the offshore fleet wasn’t really fishing yet, Capt. Len wasn’t sending his reports out, but he was still monitoring the water temps, and he spied this eddy spinning into range. He called Dad and told him that we should go off and give it a shot. The selling point was that Len thought there would be giant bluefin in the patch of water. So while the rest of the Ocean City charter fleet was wreck fishing or trolling for bluefish, the “Last Call” was out in the canyons dragging spreader bars on 130 pound tackle hoping to strike giant bluefin gold.
Unfortunately we struck out, other than the skippy and the mini mahi. And we only lucked into those because I put a little feather type lure out on one of the flat lines.
I often replay that day in my mind. The water looked good. The surface temp was in the upper 60s/low 70s. There were whales and other signs of life. What I really wish is that we had a spread of ballyhoo and smaller lures out instead of the big spreader bars. I think we may have had more luck with smaller tunas or even more mahi. We were definitely rigged for elephants, not peanuts.
But one other thing also really sticks in my mind. Well, at least today it does. Back then I was a kid that thought he knew a lot more than he really did, and I was convinced my Dad heard something wrong on the radio that day. Since there weren’t any other sportfishing boats out, the only captains on the radio were commercial fishing guys. I think the ones Dad was listening to on the radio were based out of Cape May, but I am not sure. Anyway, Dad heard one of the guys say that he saw a white marlin tailing. At the time I laughed about it. A white marlin?!? In May?!? Unheard of. Impossible.
Well here we are in the beginning of May almost 30 years later. Last week’s issue of the Coastal Fisherman had tunas, mahi mahis (worthy of 2 mahis), and makos in it. There has been a finger of good water from the Baltimore Canyon down to the Poor Mans Canyon for over a week. And over the past few years the first white marlin of the season has been caught in May. It has been too windy for the fleet to head offshore at the time I am writing this, so I have no idea what pictures will end up in this week’s issue. But I am confident that throughout the rest of this month there will be more offshore fish, and maybe even the first white marlin. And this year, that first white is worth a minimum of $10,000 dollars. If it is caught by a member of the Ocean City Marlin Club it is worth $15,000. That is the other BIG change from back in the 80s. Back then the fish received $1,000 from the town and $1,000 from the Marlin Club.
But like I said earlier, I often replay that day in the late 80s in my mind. I change my technique a bit. I put out a few ballyhoo and add a couple of teasers to the spread. Who knows….we could have been famous!
I am sure many people will be out gunning for the #FirstWhiteMarlinOC when the weather breaks. I wish everybody the best of luck. Be safe out there, and hopefully you get a chance at your own special May Coastal Fisherman picture!
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
