Fish Story

" You gents ready? We're burning daylight!"

The Skipper hoisted himself up the ladder to the bridge of the "Santiago" without waiting for an answer. He eased the big Hatteras away from the dock and into the outbound traffic of Key West Harbor.

The man from Chicago, two friends, and the not very guilty pleasure
of morning beer, watched the island disappear aft. They popped a
second round as they cleared the sea buoy and turned south by
southwest in the easy swell. They were headed for the deep water
beyond The Wall.

The fish was swimming eastward at a steady four knots in the slanting,
blue filtered half-light in that place where the setting current intercepted the up welling of deeper, colder, counter-currents. The big marlin had been there in the dark when a shoal of squid rose, flickering blue-green, from the blackness of the abyss between Cuba and Florida. The school was big enough to cover two city blocks
knee deep. She had fed well.

With the light, hunger gnawed at her again. She moved upward toward the light to hunt in the first thirty feet of clear, warmer, water.

She did not reason. She was driven by an ageless rhythm which
dictated she hunt, feed, and breed as had the countless generations
of her tribe in the millennia they had inhabited the oceans. She had
no awareness of her four hundred plus pounds or her geographic
position.

There was movement above her.

The mate was a big man with a big voice that boomed over the
steady roar of the diesels.

"Great day!" he laughed with the anticipation he always felt for a day
of fishing. "Lots of weed patches out deep with plenty of fish under
them."

" How deep are we?'' Asked one of the men.

"About a mile and a half, give or take a hundred feet." The big man
answered as he picked up a small silver fish from a bucket of ice and
seawater.

The man from Chicago tried to grasp the ineffable vastness of a mile
and half of water beneath him with nothing but a few inches of
fiberglass in the way. Like flying, he concluded.

Shadow and a degree of cooler water from above indicated
something floating. With a twitch of the huge sickle tail, the fish
changed course sighting down her bill at the school of Dorado
feeding under a weed patch. The smaller fish scattered in all
directions. One twenty-pound bull was too slow.

The marlin's bill struck with her full weight and speed of attack to
throw the prey twenty feet clear of the surface. It was dead when it hit
the water. With a second rush she engulfed the Dorado sending her
entire body clear of the surface. The force of her return threw water
high into the sunlight.

The "Santiago" was catching fish. Laughing the forgotten laughter of
boys, the men had taken several good-sized Dorado, enjoying their
hard pull and aerial displays.

"Holy Mother!" The Skipper had seen something break water off to
the southwest. Over his shoulder he called down to the deck.

"Set the eighty-wide with the Halloween head."

The big man grinned, this meant marlin.

"Where boss?"

"Mile or so southwest."

A heavy rod with a huge reel spooled with close to two miles of eighty
pound line was brought on deck. At the business end, a large, flat
faced orange and black plug fitted with two large hooks was quickly
attached.

"Change of tactics guys. Big marlin spotted and the Skipper wants to
go for it."

The big man's actions and tone of voice telegraphed his excitement.

"Big fish?" the man from Chicago was curious, "How big?"

"Marlin. No telling how big." He grinned, " Bigger than you are, I gar-
on-tee!"

"Go boss!" The throttle eased forward as the mate let the trolling
head fall aft to where the big lure popped and frothed in the blue
water. A strange tension took hold of the men aboard "Santiago” . Something dimly remembered, something old. The hunt was on.

"Watch a circle about forty feet around the head. If you see anything
like a black shape, yell out." The big mans eyes glittered with
excitement. "Now, we wait."

Full of bravado, vulgarity and another cold one, it had been an hour
of zigzag trolling, watching, and waiting.

A low vibration reaching the fish was stronger now, it triggered
response. As she turned, sunlight slanted across her silver belly and
blue striped sides. Her colors deepened. The tail beat steadily up in the
brighter water, toward something swimming fast.

The man from Chicago and the Skipper both saw a fast moving,
black shadow in the blue. The tail broke water.

"Ah, ah, there!" The man was on his feet pointing

"Fish up! Jesus Henry Christ!" Marlin up! The Skipper yelled.

The big man stepped forward and had his hands on the reel as the
fish struck. He saw the plug in the corner of the gaping mouth. Saw
the great head turn for the run. Saw the baseball sized eye roll toward them.

Give it time. One, two, three, four hundred yards; eating line.
He picked up the rod, closed the drag, and pulled hard.
Thrilled at the sudden pressure, he threw back his head.

"Fish on! "

Something pulled at her. A nagging pressure that dictated only one
thing. She ran. Down into the cooler water away from the noise and
the pressure that restrained her. She shook her head to free her of
the pulling at the side of her mouth.

"Hooked up. Lady in the blue dress!" The skipper was on the radio.
Nearby boats turned off to give "Santiago" room to work.

It was all slow motion. The man from Chicago was in the big central
chair. The rod and it's living presence was in is hands. The boat was
backing hard into the swell, water flying off the transom.


“Keep the tip up. Let her run." The mate was beside him, his big
voice subdued.

Down into the fading light of deep water, she turned and the pressure
eased. She turned again, upwards, back to the light. Have to shake it
loose.

"Wind! Pack it flat on the spool with your thumb."

The man wound. A half-mile of line to come back.

" Line angles changing! She's coming up. Keep winding!"

The man wound. In a fog of ache and suspended time, the man
wound. Something was placed under him and clipped to the reel.
Drop the tip, wind on the way down, pull steady, steady. He loved this
fish.

"Look!" the mate told the man.

The fish jumped clear. Beating the blue surface to foam in a raw and
savage dance, shaking her frame, sapping precious energy as she
tail walked to a tremendous splash.

"Wind!" The distance diminished.

The tug of war went on for an hour. Run, dive and jump. The fish was
expended. The man from Chicago wound until he was told to stop.

The fish was alongside the "Santiago."

"Look at your fish Bubba, she's a beauty'" Leaning over the side, the
big man had the fish by the bill. "All of four hundred and maybe
fifteen feet bill to tail."

The fish lay on her side, dazed, pumping her gills, unable to fight the
feeling of being touched. The eye moved, dimly aware of these
strange beings.

" Your fish, your call." The Skipper was on deck to help with the end.
In his hands, like a surgical instrument for a giant, was the deadly
curve of the flying gaff.

"Cut it loose."

The big man was talking to the fish as his pliers moved to free the
hooks.

"Come on girl, easy, easy, just a bit now. OK skipper, slow ahead."

Water passed over the gills as "Santiago" helped her breath.
Under the mates hand she shivered and began to twist.

"She's away!" Again, she was a dark shadow in the blue.

As the men sat laughing and drinking into that night The man from
Chicago was looking out the channel and the blinking marker lights
into the star splattered dark. He was thinking of the fish.
Finally, his friends called him back.

Thirty-five miles to the west, at four hundred feet, the fish had
encountered a small school of mackerel. Her strength restored, she
turned her tail to ride the westbound current to wherever it was
flowing.



This is for Gene.