Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
The White Marlin Open is up and rolling while you are reading this column. Fishing may be good. It may not. I have been peering into my crystal ball and looking for my pal The Genie, but neither one is giving me any clue how the fishing will be in the Open. And as I am writing this, I haven’t been offshore in just about a week. Mother Nature caused the Big Fish Classic to be postponed and I have been surveying boats since the wind stopped. My next day in the canyons will be during the Heels and Reels Tournament (and you, my loyal readers, will already know how that turned out…. So let me know how I did!!!)
Sitting at my desk speculating on how the Open will play out has me thinking about white marlins I have known over the years. Every one of them has been special in one way or another. I mean c’mon, when a whitey isn’t special to you it just may be time to hang up your deck shoes and find a new hobby! But that being said, some have been more special than others.
I didn’t catch my first white marlin as an angler until I was 21 years old. It wasn’t for a lack of effort in the mid-80s, but any of you who were here in the mid-80s know that marlin fishing kind of sucked in Ocean City back then. At least by today’s standards. What we now think of as a good single day catch for a boat was considered a good boat’s total season in 1985 or 1986. Seriously. The top boats in the mid-80s averaged 20 or so per season. And by the late-80s I was busy catching other people their first white marlin which meant that I didn’t get the chance anymore.
When I finally got my chance again it was in December of 1994 fishing in Palm Beach. Yup, you read that right, December in Palm Beach. It was my senior year in college and I left the day after Christmas with my buddy Joey to drive down to Florida and stay with friends who were spending their winters down there. Of course, we wanted to go fishing and who better to go with than my lifelong buddy, Blaine Champlin and his dad Jay. Jay ran my Dad’s boat for a few years in the 80s and 90s and I had worked as his mate. Blaine and I grew up together. They were working on a 48 Viking named the “Reel Tease” at the time. Their boss wasn’t coming to town until after the first of the year and they needed to fish a practice day or two to be ready for his arrival. Joey and I jumped at the chance to head out with them. We made plans to fish on December 29th.
So there we were, fishing in pretty blue water off of Palm Beach on a balmy winter morning. And nope, we weren’t flying kites with live baits under them. The sails weren’t biting that good and the conditions just didn’t look right for live baiting. Taking those things into consideration, Capt. Jay had decided to take us trolling out in a couple hundred feet of water. To be honest, our expectations were not that high. But we were having fun. The cooler was full of beer, the seas were calm and some of my favorite fishing buddies were all together. And I am pretty sure I was wearing a clown wig.
At some point that morning we were trolling along a weed edge when Blaine said that he thought he saw a mahi chasing the left rigger bait. Anyone that follows me on social media or in the pages of the Coastal Fisherman knows that I am a huge fan of the mahi-mahi. A fish so nice they named it twice. The words were barely out of Blaine’s mouth when I picked up the rod and put the reel in free spool. I felt the bite and fed the fish. A few seconds later I set the hook and my fish immediately starting jumping. That’s right. You guessed it. No mahi here. A white marlin. My white marlin. A decade after I started trying to catch it.
Jay was, and still is, a very talented captain and Blaine was no slouch in the cockpit in those days (not to sell him short, he is a tremendous slouch in the captain’s seat nowadays… If you don’t know what I am quoting from then you need to brush up on your classic Chevy Chase movies!). I have never been much of an angler, but these guys made sure that I didn’t screw up too bad. After about 10 minutes, Blaine had the fish’s bill in his hands and Joey snapped a picture of me with my first white marlin. That will always rank as one of my most special white marlin. It was not especially big. We weren’t targeting it, let alone expecting it. But we caught it. One of my most special white marlins.
I will be fishing the White Marlin Open while you are reading this and there will be many special white marlin being caught I am sure. Hopefully I am adding another to my list! A million dollar kind of special. That would make it extra special!
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
