Denizens of the Deep

by Philip Wylie

  So it happened.

  The white marlin sank and sank and drowned and hit bottom and the forward drifting of the boat pulled out a little line as the fish dragged through the sand. Our inexperienced angler, believing this to be a sign of further fight and unaware of the real situation, went wearily and desperately to work again. This gave me an idea. Remembering how often I had been called a shrimp by the gent (I’m 5 10½ and weigh 165) and how often he had called fishing a sissy sport, I had the skipper gun the boat ahead for about three hundred yards. The dead marlin, dragging in the sand, took out at least half that much line. In agony, the gentleman from L. A. worked it back. The skipper gunned again on my signal and the tormented ex-footballer had it to do all over. This system was continued ad lib for the best part of another hour—making a modest-sized dead marlin do the work of a larger, live one, until my pal and I decided that the Angelino had taken all he could safely stand. We then let him bring the leader-bound, deceased fish to boat.

  He spent the next three days in bed with exhaustion, prostration, charley horses, massage, infrared lamps and so on. He regards the capture of his fifty-five-pound marlin as the sports achievement of his days. It adorns his office, mounted in full panoply, and unless he reads these lines he will never know that he got a blue-marlin workout from that little white.

  It is the quest of the big blue marlin, however, that taxes the patience of all fishermen and drives them to apogees of effort. Think, for instance, of going to the best fishing grounds in the best part of the marlin season, starting out every morning at seven or eight, trolling all day and until sunset without a strike of any kind, starting again the next day—on the hot, blue summer sea off Bimini, and the next, and the next, and so on—without seeing a fish or getting a single strike for twenty-two consecutive days!

  I did that once. For twenty-two straight days I sat by myself in the cockpit, with two baits out, and fished all day—while the crew stayed up topside in the breeze under a sunshade. I was alone the whole time. I got to know myself pretty well. But I didn’t get a fish. And on the twenty-third day I had to go back home to Miami. That, of course, was the day the blues came in.

  Such ardors explain the many sorts of odd behavior that occur when a marlin is found, hooked, and approaches capture.

  They explain, for example, the act of a mate who watched a customer fight a four-hundred-pound blue to a standstill, grabbed the leader, and led the exhausted fish to the boatside—only to have the hook pull out. There—inches from capture, was the great prize, slowly sinking in the blue Gulf Stream—inert, licked, all but dead. The mate couldn’t stand it. He dived into the sea, grabbed the giant by the bill, swam furiously until he surfaced, and caught a rope. Mate and marlin both were boated!

  These excitements also explain why a Mr. A hasn’t any right thumb. As he brought his first blue marlin to boat, the mate, heaving in the long leader wire, accidentally threw a loop of it around Mr. A’s neck. He was still seated in the fighting chair, at his rod, as is proper. At the moment the loop of wire went over his head, the marlin broke loose from the mate’s grasp. Mr. A, not wanting to be beheaded by the drawn-up loop (which he would have been), thrust his thumb under the wire and lifted it up over his head. He did not have time, however, to free his thumb, so the wire came tight on it and cut it off. All hands on board swear to what happened next.

  The fish was still hooked. Mr. A adjusted his reel and braced himself against the run. He whipped out a clean handkerchief, took the weight of the fish on his shoulders, then tightly wrapped his bleeding wound. He next reached down, picked his thumb from the deck, calmly dropped it in a pocket, and proceeded to bring back the marlin to the boatside. When it had been heaved aboard—and only then—he gave his injury a more effective dressing while he headed for shore and a doctor.

  Blue-marlin fishing is expensive. But four men, dividing the charter of a boat, can fish for blues as reasonably as they can indulge in any of a dozen other sports.

  Let any skeptic try it—if, that is, his doctor tells him he’s in reasonable condition—and if he’s the sort of chap who doesn’t lack patience or care what happens when all hell breaks loose. For if he does get his blue, he’ll find that he sits around quite smugly afterward as colleagues boast about the touchdown they made for dear old Yale, or the time they took a first in the high hurdles, or the tiger they bagged in India.

  When all such as these get done with brag, he can begin.

  “Ever catch a blue marlin?”

  It’s always a peach of a story.

  Marine middleweights

  Few anglers have ever hung a sea lion. I am one of the few. It happened off the coast of Southern California. We were trolling near a rocky sea-lion-swarming shore and I hung a yellowtail. One of the mammals that had been disporting hard by charged my fish under water. The first warning I had of his presence was a redoubled tug on my line. The second evidence was the sea lion’s face, breaking water, right behind my fish. The animal bit my fish in two, even as my boat companions yelled and waved clubs at it—a disturbance ignored by the beast, which presently snatched the inert half of my quarry—and got the hook. His ensuing (and probably horrified) “run” was long, fast and in every way remarkable. All my line was ripped out. It broke. The entire “action” took, I’d guess, about half the time required to read this paragraph.

  However, from the power and velocity exhibited by the mammal, I would judge that very few anglers indeed have ever “fought” a hooked sea lion for much longer. None has been “boated” by that method. A sea lion, I would say—from other and equally startling experiences—has about as much malarky as a big porpoise. I have, owing to similar accidents of thieving, hooked porpoises while aiming at kingfish. Nobody has ever caught a porpoise on a light rod, either—or any rod, so far as I have been able to learn. In fact, I regard fishing for porpoises and sea lions as a low trick, like poisoning bears, since they have brains and are conscious and are like dogs rather than fishes.

  But such adventures have set me thinking of excitement connected with kingfish, yellowtail and the like, the “middle-weights” of the sea. Going after them is not usually regarded as a primary sport amongst deep-sea anglers (a few species are to be excepted, as I shall show) although the middle-weights offer thrills uncountable and require great skill. Unfortunately, they are too frequently hooked by people trolling for bigger game and using, in consequence, tackle too large for this class. Furthermore, some people scorn them, especially the inshore or coastal breeds. One of the first deep-sea guides with whom I fished, the late Captain George Fizzell, used to refer to ’cudas, jacks, groupers and the like as “reef trash.” His day was ruined whenever his customers insisted on trolling “inside” the Gulf Stream.

  But Gulf Stream fishing, like all blue-water, big-fish angling, can be slow. I have recorded in these very pages how once I trolled for twenty-two consecutive days from dawn to dark for blue marlin—without getting a strike of any kind. Of course, I was using big baits—whole bonefish of between three and seven pounds each—and smaller baits might easily have attracted other, if lesser, fishes. But twenty-two days of strikeless trolling is a long time and costs a lot of money; I felt as a wildcat oilman must when he finally concedes the hole he has drilled is dry. People who go sailfishing are aware of the comparative scarcity, at times, of that gamester. They often ask, “If the sails aren’t hitting, is there a chance of anything else?” There always is: the middleweights.

  What do I mean by the term? I mean that galaxy of ocean species which normally weigh between five and fifty pounds, fish as game—relatively—as the prized marlin, broadbill, mako shark, bluefin and yellowfin tuna, sailfish, and so on. Fish of such sorts abound in many waters if not most. Some, such as the “school tuna,” furnish a separate division of angling sport. But off Florida, California, the Bahamas, islands of the Pacific and the Mediterranean coast (to mention just a few locales) the medium-sized fishes of the reef are responsible for the bulk of the sportsman’s c
atch—as well as for sundry cults and local enthusiasms. The angler trolling in deeper water, say for white marlin or sailfish, may well come in without either—and yet feel satisfied with a catch of dolphin, bonito, barracuda, albacore and perhaps, on a lucky day, a big wahoo. None of these fish is likely to weigh more than fifty pounds—though most of them might. Every one is a double handful of blister-raising fish power.

  For example, I have always maintained that a little-known fish called arctic bonito, which seldom weighs more than fifteen pounds, is, for his size, the strongest fish that swims. Admittedly, that opinion is open to question—even to argument—and if staunchly held it can lead to fist-fighting. However, this bonito takes baits of a size intended for sailfish, as well as feathers and spoons. His fighting is done under water—he seldom breaks the surface until you pull him out. But if you hang an arctic bonito on such gear as you would normally use for largemouth bass, muskellunge or salmon, you will be given a thought-provoking experience: you won’t catch the bonito; you will merely lose your line. The sheer speed, power and doggedness of this cobalt-and-silver-streaked powerhouse will dumfound you. On sailfish gear, of course, it’s a different story—but who would hunt quail with cannon and shrapnel? Most arctic bonito, sadly enough, are taken by people trolling for sails with heavy tackle.

  The dolphin, more numerous, more widely distributed, is more celebrated. He is stronger for his weight than the sailfish. He (or she—for among dolphins the sexes are readily told apart) is also a leaping fish. Sails and marlins could learn much about aerial gymnastics from dolphin. This blue-spotted, green, gold and azure creature, moreover, is handsomer than any trout: dolphins are so beautiful that Shelley wrote a poem about them. They are so stunning to watch, in a clear sea, with the sun shining on them, that I’ve repeatedly seen anglers lose them because, once they sighted the dolphins, their eyes popped, their jaws dropped and they forgot to go on fishing. They just stared and exclaimed. One man, even, to get a better look, put down his rod and leaned far over the gunwale. He lost the rod and the fish, too—and we nearly lost him before he gave up gazing! That time (as often), when one fish had been hooked, a whole school came up to see what was going on—an incandescent green, gold and blue-dappled horde as radiant as a swarm of two-foot butterflies.

  There is, while the subject of beauty is under discussion, a beautiful grouper. Generally, the grouper (a kind of sea bass) is regarded as ugly. He has an outsize mouth—which yawns open and makes a formidable brake in the last stages of a battle with him. He is brownish and blackish and mottled like a toad. But a grouper called rock hind, though he has considerable color variation, specializes in brilliant reds and is spotted from mouth to tail with deep scarlet or crimson. The yellow-fin grouper is on the pretty side, also; and it should be noted that even the most dazzling grouper is as delicious in chowder as the most drab—which says much, since grouper chowder is good enough to make a Yankee forget about clams.

  Groupers are inshore or “reef” fish, although out on the deeper bottom lives one—the warsaw grouper—whose weight may exceed four hundred pounds. We used to fish for them, using a breakaway lead of some twenty pounds on a cable so rigged that once the fish was hung, the weight could be winched back to the boat. These big fish, however, aren’t fighters. As you heave them surfaceward, the pressure diminishes and the air inside them expands so that the fish swells grotesquely, dies—even bursts! On the other hand, we’ve found certain snappers of fifteen to twenty pounds which, if brought up swiftly from even as much as six hundred feet, hardly swell at all and arrive very much alive. Why the difference, none can say as yet. Scientists are studying the subject.

  The grouper is my favorite ocean fish to eat. He is easy to catch, will hit almost any kind of bait (including a rag, by test!) and is regarded as only mildly game. This is owing to the fact that he is usually taken on too-heavy tackle. On light tackle, a grouper can be a piscatorial problem for anybody. Part of the reason is his usual custom, when hooked, of trying to bore back down and among the corals where he lives. Corals are exceedingly sharp and a fish plunging amongst hills of them—among arcades, tunnels, natural bridges, shelves and other formations—usually cuts the line. Perhaps if he doesn’t manage that, he does contrive to get into a spot where he can brace himself and hang on. Then the angler gives him slack, even as with a small pond fish caught amongst snags, and waits in the hope the grouper will tire of playing ‘possum and emerge. I’ve seen an angler wait an hour for that to happen—and win.

  But another reason for taking interest in groupers is this: sometimes they don’t merely bore down toward bottom till spent. I’ve seen groupers leap more than once and I’ve even, on one occasion, seen a grouper greyhound after a trolling bait, just like a dolphin—or a marlin! Moreover, groupers are strong. Off Turtle Rock, near Bimini, some years ago, while fishing with Captain Eddie Wall on the Playmate, I saw a grouper—a fifty- or sixty-pounder, charge an amberjack. I’d been fighting on light tackle for half an hour. The Playmate was lying dead in the water, the sea was glassy calm, the sun was directly overhead and my amberjack was on the small side—about thirty pounds. The grouper hit him, shook him, and in an instant bit (or broke) him in two, rushing off with the larger half. Many old-time anglers have doubted that tale; but I saw it happen and so did the guides.

  Groupers, also, when the notion occurs to them, will fight right on the surface—making long runs which supply in power what they lack (when compared with the runs, say, of a wahoo) in speed. They may even fight with their dorsal fin out, like a shark. And sharks may be the reason for this occasional, atypical style of battle: Sometimes a hooked grouper may prefer the surface to his usual downward dive, owing to the fact that he knows, somewhere below, a shark is waiting and watching interestedly. At least, that’s the only reasonable explanation we’ve ever hit upon for the surface-fighting grouper.

  The all-time down-boring champion, however, is the amberjack, and his Pacific relative, the yellowtail. An amberjack is definitely a reef fish although sometimes caught in blue water. Amongst the middleweights his working style may be compared with that of the mule or burrow. Catch him and you will see he is all “shoulder.” He gets big—up to and a bit over a hundred pounds. Blunt-nosed, amber and silver with vague purplish marks and iridescences, the amberjack hits anything, though he prefers live fish. He often travels in schools and lives in families so that he shares with the dolphins a frequent custom of inspecting en famille a hooked fellow fish. This means that, when you have finally whipped down one big amberjack and brought him in toward your boat for gaffing, he may be accompanied by a half-dozen—or a hundred!—companions. This, in turn, means that while your captain is gaffing, the mate may be baiting up another rod.

  Hence, just as your fish is boated and you wearily open a beer or light a cigarette to rest, the mate hands you a new rod, and steps to the stern. He peers down into the water, picks the largest amberjack he can spot in the tarrying school and tries to toss the live bait—perhaps a half- or one-pound grunt or yellowtail (in this case, not the Pacific fish but a small, Atlantic species—no relation) right into grandpa amberjack’s jaws. Sometimes the mate does it. I’ve done it myself. Sometimes the tossed-in bait becomes the center of an amberjack merry-go-round staged in three dimensions and as many directions as meridians take; but somebody nearly always gets the bait before it’s stripped from the hook. The gimmick is, being the angler, being tired, you’re nevertheless once again hooked to something like a wrong-way V2—one, that is, headed not for the stratosphere but the infernal regions.

  And this sequential fishing can go on and on and on. Just how long, nobody knows. Few living men have taken six amberjack of large size in a row, fewer still have caught ten in a series. So few, at any rate, that I’ve never read or heard of it or seen it happen—though I’ve seen when it could have happened. For I recall one pleasant season in Bimini when one of the world’s greatest anglers and I (one of the world’s most fluent discoursers on deep-sea angling
) were nettled, not to say indignant, that some guests came aboard armed to and above the teeth, maybe cowlick high, with bowie knives, sharp machetes, killing spears, lances and assorted guns of the elephant and buckshot kind. These gents—well enough educated to know better—were loaded for—what? Hostile spaceship inhabitants, it looked like.

  My friend and I earnestly sought trouble for these two gents—but trouble was hard to find far at sea that day. The water was poured-metal calm. Marine fish often knock off hitting surface baits under such conditions. Possibly they think kills would be too easy. Anyhow, strikeless, we moved in over the reef. There below us, for four hours, paraded neck and neck, feet apart, a march of amberjack about two hundred yards wide and we don’t know how long. Miles, many miles—they were still parading, much like migrating tuna, but without major breaks in ranks and without “schooling,” when darkness fell. We tossed live baits into this transient horde of what seemed like all the amberjack in the world.

  Fish were hooked; battles started; and each hooked fish was accompanied, during the fight, by from six to a dozen companions. Often these accompanying fish snatched bits of the trailing bait right from the jaws of their hooked associates. Indeed, if we’d had the rigs (and the muscle, and the non-sporting desire), we could undoubtedly have hooked three or four or five of these fish at a time, on one setup. This “show” was plainly visible to all of us except the anglers because of the clarity and calmness of the sea; the anglers themselves missed it—they were too busy angling. The moment one or other of them boated or lost a fish, one of us stood by with a new rod, reel, line and baited hook ready. For, as soon as the other angler got his fish near the boat, the “escort” was within tossing range. We would pick out the biggest fish and throw a bait directly at him. The eye would roll, the big jaws snap, and the angler’s contest would start anew.