Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
I saw a great picture on social media earlier last week. I don’t personally know the guy who posted the pic, but from the best I can tell it was authentic. The subject of the photo was some sort of halfbeak. The most common of the halfbeaks to fishermen are ballyhoo. The fish in this picture was a relative, but it’s tail was different. What was most interesting to me was that he caught the fish in his cast net in the Assawoman bay. In the caption he said that it was one of several dozen he caught. I have never caught or seen one up here. I have seen plenty of needlefish and houndfish, which are also some sort of relative to the ballyhoo, but this was a first for me. Pretty cool stuff. That picture got me thinking about the fun I’ve had with cast nets over the years and some of the strange things I have caught in them.
My very first cast net was a four footer that I got when I was nine-years-old. A four-foot net doesn’t open up very big, but it was a great tool for me to learn with as a little kid. Countless hours were spent on the piers at the White Marlin Marina and on the sandbars north and south of the Rt. 50 Bridge. Spot, mullet and shiners were my primary targets in those days because they all made good bait for flounder and bluefish. One afternoon while throwing the net off of the southern pier at the White Marlin Marina I was surprised when the net came up with two live squid in it. That was the first and only time I have caught squid in the bay.
I graduated up to a six-foot net after that first summer with the four-footer. Then the six quickly turned into an eight. The catches and variety of species increased with the bigger nets. Schools of bunker were decimated and used for chumming and chunking. Mullet were easier to catch with the bigger and heavier nets and the livewell on our charter boat, “Last Call” almost always had a full supply of them on hand for rockfish or mahi baits. While throwing on to mullet in Bahia Marina one evening I caught a 24-inch rockfish in with the school of bait. I was bummed out that it wasn’t a keeper!
Another time at Bahia, I caught a baby tarpon in the net. The little tarpon was about 10-inches long. I tried to keep it alive, but it wasn’t fairing too well, so I released it. This was in the days long before camera phones and there weren’t any cameras around on the boat, so I couldn’t document the catch. My dad and a few other people got to see it though. In my way of thinking, if you catch a baby then the momma can’t be too far away, but I have never heard of a tarpon being caught in the back bay. Capt. Paul Daisy caught a full grown tarpon trolling at the First Lump many, many years ago, but that is the only other tarpon I know of in Ocean City.
When the “Last Call” started going to Islamorada in the Florida Keys, my cast net world became a whole lot larger. An eight-foot net wouldn’t cut it down there. Twelve, fourteen and even sixteen-foot nets were the norm back in the 80s. I think twelve is the biggest you can legally use down there now. The Islamorada boys take their nets very seriously. There were competitions in the marina parking lots to see who could throw the biggest net with the most accuracy at the greatest distance. I once saw a guy put twenty additional feet of rope on what was already a thirty or forty-foot length that came with the net. He pancaked the net out perfectly all the way to the end of the rope and landed the center of the net opening over a beer can. It was really incredible to see.
My friend Wayno’s father was known for being the best at making and repairing nets. He was a cantankerous dude in those days (and probably still is…) but he was a wizard with the nets and needles. It was during my second season in Islamorada that I watched Wayno’s dad, Capt. Fred, and Capt. Carlos, who was running my Dad’s boat down there, enact a brilliant plan. They spent months feeding fish scraps to the snappers and groupers that lived in the marina. After they were fully fattened up, Carlos pulled the “Last Call” out of the slip and he and Fred did a little chumming with fish scraps. They then threw the net into the open slip over a swarm of tasty groceries. Hundreds of pounds of fresh grouper and snapper came up on the dock. Of course the bony fins did a real number on the net, but Fred was a master net repairman so it all worked out. I also watched Carlos throw the net over a school of tripletail that were congregated under a floating pallet one day. Pretty sure the net needed a trip to Fred’s shop again after that haul.
I currently keep a six-foot and a twelve-foot net on the “Last Call”. My wife is very fond of throwing the six-foot net. Actually it is her net, but we keep it on the boat. I have seen her wipe out more than a few schools of bunker with that net and I am sure that she will catch something really cool in it sooner or later. Maybe it will be a rockfish big enough to keep, or that baby tarpon all grown up by now!
Capt Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call”, owner of Pettolina Marine Surveying, Inc. and multi-term President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
