Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
As I stood in the cockpit with lightning flashes streaking through the night sky, a mortal battle was waging just a few feet away from me. Actually “battle” is probably the wrong name for it. It was more of a slaughter than a battle. After what I witnessed this past Saturday night just north of the 461 Lump, I can unequivocally say that 4 to 6-inch flying fish are no match for a squid of just about any size.
Throughout the day on Saturday, we spotted flying fish on the surface many times. Fishing was pretty slow, but there were flyers everywhere. When we set up to drift for the night, with our bright spreader lights shining and our chum pot dispersing fishy snacks, we soon had bunches of those little flyers hanging all around the boat. Quite often they would take flight and land on our covering boards or even on the deck near our feet.
An hour or two after dark the squids showed up. If you have never seen a live squid, let me tell you this. They are fast! I mean Ricky Bobby fast when they want to be and they can be just as fast going forwards as they are in reverse. I am pretty sure they are the only creature that can make that claim. If you don’t believe me, try dip netting them when they aren’t preoccupied eating chum or baby flying fish. If you are not super sneaky and quick on the draw, your net will come up empty more often than not. Like I said, they are fast!
Soon after the squids showed up, I witnessed the great flying fish feast come to pass. Flyers only have one strategy. There is no fight - only flight. Squids apparently utilize a singular strategy as well. Spook the flyers into the air and then be there when they land. The little flyers would launch themselves up and away from the squids, and no sooner were they in the air when the squid would hit it’s high speed turbo water jet and catch the flyer when it splashed down. From that point on, it would be a struggling flying fish held by tentacles, all the while being eaten alive by Squidward and his buddies. Pretty gruesome when you think about it. Being ripped to shreds by a hooked beak. Squids are mean! And scary! For their size at least.
Later on towards morning, I heard a conversation on the radio between my buddies Gary and Big Al. They were talking about a big school of two tones (a type of dolphin- the mammal, not the fish) tearing apart a bait ball of mackerels. Yup, good old Flipper and his pals were decimating an entire population of mackerels. Big Al was talking about the quick work the two tones made of the bait ball. He said it was really cool to watch, and I am sure it was super cool, unless you were one of the mackerels!
This got me thinking about something I always tell my charter clients. The ocean is an extremely violent ecosystem. When you are small you get eaten. When you are slow you get eaten. When you get old or careless you get eaten. Big fish eat little fish. That’s what they do. Most fish are cannibals. Big tunas eat little tunas. Momma mahi eat baby mahi.
When it comes down to it, mahi eat just about anything - turtles, filefish, pufferfish, crabs, shrimp, mini marlins, squid, mackerel, sea horses and micro swordfish. These are all things I have found in the bellies of mahi when I cut them open, or when they throw up all over my deck! Mahi are eating machines! I saw a picture on Facebook recently of a pile of dead baby sea turtles. There were probably 30 or more of them. They were all the contents of a big gaffer mahi’s stomach. I watch enough Discovery Channel to know that something like one out of every couple hundred baby sea turtles survives the crawl from the nest on the beach to the ocean. So, in essence, this one mahi wiped out the entire year’s crop of newborn sea turtles!
Disney has it all wrong. There are no musical numbers under the sea. Fish don’t have friends. Predators do not protect their prey. Neptune may be the King of the Sea, but I am pretty sure a hungry mako shark would make pretty quick work of him given the opportunity! And poor Ariel wouldn’t stand a chance. Little Mermaid my butt, more like Little Lite Fare! My biggest fear is to be reincarnated as a bait fish.
I am writing this a few days prior to the start of the White Marlin Open. This issue will have the winners of the Ocean City Marlin Club Heels and Reels Ladies Tournament in it. There may even be an early front runner from the Open pictured on these pages. All of them are big fish that ate little fish (or maybe a piece of plastic that looked like a little fish). Yup, the ocean is a violent ecosystem. Humans are the only ones out there for fun. To everything else, it truly is a matter of life and death.
To all of the participants in the Heels and Reels I hope you had a blast! To everyone in the WMO, I hope you have the luck of the squid and not the fate of the flying fish. Also, no matter what happens to be on the leaderboard prior to Friday night, remember, to quote one of my favorite Jedi… “There is always a bigger fish!”
One last thing. I apologize to the internet fish police for my excessive use of the word “Mahi” this week. It is just so much easier to type than Atlantic dolphin fish!
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
