Denizens of the Deep

by Philip Wylie

  We watched the great groupers living down there—and the amberjacks; we saw, once or twice, sailfish moving in blue radiance through the enchantment. There were sea anemonies and sea worms with their flowerlike mouths agape. Spiny lobsters and octopi, too; shrimp and other crustacea. And it wasn’t feeding time for anybody—or perhaps a truce had been declared. Anyhow, with almost Biblical tranquillity and assurance, the “lions” of the sea intermingled with its “lambs.” The whole subsurface world of fish was displayed all afternoon—in a state of utter peace and of such beauty that I stumble in trying to convey any sense of the memory. It can’t be said. It must be seen.

  We didn’t wet a line after that calm fell. We didn’t need a glass bucket to see down. We just stretched out on the forward deck, or over the stern, and let the boat drift—passengers and mate and captain—all afternoon. We looked. It made another one of the greatest days I’ve ever had in fishing.

  I have a record at my club—for a ninety-nine-pound white marlin taken on twelve-thread line. Not a sensational catch and it stood quite a long time simply because none of my clubmates have happened to fish much, with that particular line, in white marlin waters. I remember the battle that fish put up—it was very exhilarating. I remember, too, my disappointment when the scales said, “99.” “If that marlin,” I kept thinking, “had only eaten one more mackerel that day, he’d have gone over a hundred.”

  But even more sharply I remember two other fish I lost. One was a tarpon. I hooked him from a dinghy while fishing down in the Keys with Leo Johnson. I was plug casting—using an ordinary black-bass rod and ordinary, twelve-pound-test Nylon line. Such gear is meant for such fish as the black bass mentioned earlier. But the tarpon I hung weighed, at Leo’s best guess—and he’s a conservative, experiencd guide—a hundred pounds and somewhat more. The total length of my line—incidentally—was a hundred yards. Figure it out for yourself:

  If he has a mind to, a tarpon can run a thousand yards. Maybe ten thousand, for all I know. And a race horse would have trouble keeping up. But this guy—this aluminum-scaled monster—liked it where he was. All he didn’t like was my plug in his jaws. So he spent the afternoon leaping, pinwheeling, shaking himself, tearing up the local bay. He never did put on a long, straight burst of speed—or I’d have lost him the minute he got one inch over a hundred yards away.

  Sometimes, to be sure, he’d roll, grunt audibly and take off in a plodding manner, so that I gave line gradually until at last the fish was towing the two of us in the dinghy. But he’d tire of that—and jump again. We didn’t count the times he fountained out and splashed back—a geyser of molten silver—a double explosion.

  Perhaps he jumped, in the near-three hours I had him on—a hundred times. Maybe it was only fifty. Certainly he rolled part way out hundreds of times, for the water all around was from a mere three to six feet deep and he was always near the surface.

  At long last, when he was so tired he could only thump his tail a bit and so move along on his side—all but belly up—I began to get him within range of Leo’s reaching gaff. But the tiny reel “froze” at that moment—froze from the long strain of tight, wound line which finally bent its flanges against its sides so it could turn no more. The tarpon made a last try, when he saw the gaff, maybe twenty inches away. I couldn’t give line from the stuck reel so—his last lunge paid off.

  I darn near had him. I was within less than two feet—ten seconds of having him. At that date, he’d have been a world record for that tackle—though, as an IGFA official, I was and am not eligible for world records. Still, it would have been fun to have had an unofficial record even for a while. Only a while—because, since then, even bigger tarpon have been taken by better anglers on identical tackle!

  Down there in the Keys, though, I feel sort of even with the tarpon. For there is a region along a flat called “Nine Mile Bank” which is, nowadays, referred to by Leo (and a few other guides) as “Wylie’s Bight.” Another day in another year—in a year before the wars—Leo and I fished there together and we saw, in the space of that day, only six tarpon. All six broke the surface. I cast at every whirl. Every time, I hooked the tarpon. And I boated all six! They ran from fifteen to thirty-seven pounds—not bad for bass tackle! In the local “books,” nobody else has ever cast to, hooked and caught six tarpon in a row; and nobody’s ever made a 100 per cent score for the day on even a lesser number of sighted tarpon! It’s as near as I’ll get, I guess, to making a legend—a little, local one. But—what a day that was!

  Off and on, for many years, in such shallow, weedy, sandy or marly flats as bonefish feed on, I’ve tried to catch a permit. A permit is a kind of pompano which reaches about fifty pounds or thereabouts; it feeds on crabs and the like. It swims in on the flats so far its dorsal sticks out of water and, when it noses down to eat, out comes its tail. It is a very fast and powerful fish—some say, pound for pound, the fastest and most powerful. Years back, nobody had ever taken one on a plug. And in that era, one rainy, windy afternoon, I was casting over a “draw” on the flats when a big permit came out of the water and caught my plug in the air! I hooked the fool, too!

  With the guide rowing manfully, we fought him over many draws and flats in the next hour. Permits, I learned then and there—when the water gets only inches deep—can turn on their sides and, looking like blue-and-gold flounders, swim just as fast and trickily as any upright bonefish! But this time, too, my reel froze. For a while I continued the fight by “stripping” line, as you do in trout and salmon fishing. Then—out of the roily, marly greenish-white depth of a “channel” came a black-tipped shark—after my hooked permit. The shark and I battled each other for a long time—the permit was more on my side of it than on the shark’s—but, in the end, the black-tip won. He grabbed and ate the biggish fish when I had it tired and very near the boat! . . . .

  Forty years is a lot of years to have been fishing in. Each recollection of a “finest moment” casts up the memory of another. I could tell you, for example, about the time we hung “something” that fought so curiously and looked, in deep, dim silhouette, so odd—that nobody was ever sure it was a fish. What then? Search me: we lost him.

  But I could tell how I took my father deep-sea fishing on Friday and Saturday (for the first time in his life) and how he came so close to catching a sailfish that, on Sunday, he rose before me and chartered the boat again. That was odd of father, you see, because he’s a Presbyterian minister. In fact, he had already announced the church he’d attend that day. Well—we sailfished instead, preacher or no. And Dad got one! It’s mounted, and on the wall in his study to this day.

  There’s some grumbling amongst some men about women and fishing. (My friend Chisie Farrington, famed angling wife of the celebrated Kipp, has written a swell book—for the ladies—on the subject.) But Mrs. Wylie has long since ended all debate, as far as I’m concerned. She is reputed amongst many male guides and even some anti-woman angling experts to be one of the fastest, smoothest light-tackle operators alive. And that gave both of us some unforgettable days—days like the early one (in her angling career) when she held my rod (four-ounce tip, six-thread line) so I could open a few cola bottles—and raised, hung, fought and boated what proved to be, for many years, the heaviest sailfish ever taken by a woman on such light gear.

  Or I could report how Harold Schmitt and I went “deep-trolling” (at several hundred feet), caught a big Warsaw grouper—on heavy tackle—and, when we brought it in, posed it with Harold’s young son and the lightest rod on board—for a joke. But some south Florida publicity man “released” the picture. We spent years afterward answering people from all U.S.A. who asked how such a little child caught such an enormous fish on such pitiful tackle!

  And I remember one particular occasion when I took a newsreel man out fishing. I used very heavy tackle and promised I’d drag anything I hooked right up to the boat and then let off the pressure so the camerman could photograph the jumps—if any. I was hunting for sailfish. Wha
t I got was a very big bull dolphin. I reeled him to within fifteen feet of the stern. We swung the boat into the sun to make the light perfect. The camera was set up on the canopy. I eased off the drag and the dolphin jumped—more than eight feet high I believe—and eleven times. Then it collapsed—dead. I then looked up happily at the cameraman, sure he had the finest dolphin leaps on film. “Turn him loose again!” the man said amiably. “I wasn’t set.” No more fish that day, of course!

  Forty years is a long, rich time to have fished in. But, as I say, fishermen are philosophers and they don’t worry as other sportsmen do about age. For my part, I just wonder what I’ll catch in the next forty years.