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We should have known better. We had heard that there was a lot of very ugly weather that had followed Hurricane Tony up the Atlantic Coast, but we could ride it out in a big twin diesel Bertram off shore big game fishing boat, right? Right! We did far more vertical than horizontal travel on the long ride out to the continental shelf off Ocean City, Maryland, and by the time we got to an indentation of the conshelf called "Poor Man's Canyon", the captain in the tuna tower waving on wide excursions with each crashing wave was the only one of us that was not sicker than death re-warmed. We thought we would have to get better to die; we only staggered to our feet periodically to lurch over the back rail and suck in the exhaust fumes from twin pipes without mufflers exposed by the ebb of the waves while retching repeatedly. Ah, it don't get no better than this!
When the first yellowfin tuna hit the trolling rig, I could not be induced to stand and fight. We took turns, until we got the slippery torpedo close enough to gaff from the wildly plunging boat's cockpit. Well, I had enjoyed as much of that as I could stand, and I collapsed back into the misery of mal de mer. Another tuna hit, and I didn't want to hear about it. By a lot of flailing with Capt. Bligh's cat-of-nine-tails, we somehow got the galley slaves roused to the point of hauling this brutal fusiform bull to gaff also, and he beat a tattoo with his tail on the cockpit floor, looking about like a bloody submarine--and even with a gaff through him he was better adapted to the environment in which we found ourselves--unmercifully four hours and 300 gallons of diesel fuel out from the rest of the more reasonable folk who had all stayed in port.
Then we saw the patch on the roiled surface. Out here in the Gulf Stream, there are occasional rafts of Sargasso Weed that are floating along heading north and east to join the large mass of vegetation (and plastic bottles, fish net floats and glass) clustered in the vast mid-Atlantic Sargasso Sea. Where there are such floating islands (as reported by those who have been cast adrift in life rafts for weeks in the ocean--avid survival reading for those of us who might find ourselves in such a situation some day) there are little butterfish that hover under the cover of such surface weeds. Beneath them are the swift pelagic fish who come up to investigate and snatch the butterfish and other community denizens of these small ecosystems.
And then, I saw them. Even sick, I was impressed. They were swift brilliant flashes of iridescent light. Aquamarine, silver, golden and so graceful in the arcs they cut under our boat and around the floating Sargasso weed. I happened to be back at the stern at the time, engaged in some other business that involved my intense concentration focused over board in the water off our stern, when I tried to shout weakly that I had seen something beautiful, and it looked like it was staying with the seaweed.
The screws were stopped and we drifted at idyll as we frantically rigged light spinning gear, leaving the trolling lines out adrift as we tried to get ready to throw to the silvery phantoms at the weed beds. I was rigged up first, a remarkable Lazarus phenomenon, even if I must report it myself, and tossed to the nearest edge of the grass--and instantly was hit. The slivery streak ripped off line and jumped free of the surface. He hung in the spray, a dazzling living rainbow. It really doesn't get better than this!
As long as I held him in the water and did not bring him to gaff, there were others that would swim around him in a nearly social order--but they seemed excited by his flurry of charges and frenzied jumps. My companions had undergone their own resurrection experiences in seeing the fish that had inspired me painted against the horizon as he exercised a rather respectable hang time for their aesthetic appreciation, and soon we were each fighting one of the Dorado all at once. We could now bring one or more of them in, so long as we still had one in the water to hold the others of the school with them. This was on light tackle, so it was not difficult to "keep them on" out there, since that certainly seemed to be their choice also, exercised in streaking runs of silver and blue.
I had completely forgotten about my illness, and only had a bit of residual weakness. I realized that I could cast out into the school and target a particular fish. If one of the other (smaller, or female) fish snapped at it, I could snatch it away and direct it at one of the big bull shouldered males--who would invariably honor this attention by hitting. There were very few minutes when I was not occupied in fighting a fish, and it was rare when each of the three of us were not simultaneously hooked into one, unless we were hauling one in, or getting ready to cast out. I lost count. But I was after one big bull dolphin I could see with his head protruding form the edge of the grassy island over the 300 fathoms of blue space. I reached out with a long cast right over his nose, and --Bingo! I was into the "pick of the litter". He was beautiful and eager to show off in multiple jumps and "greyhounding" surface skipping. When I reluctantly brought him in and hoisted him up for the photograph I wanted to get as quickly as he came out of the water, since they fade to such a non-vital color so quickly, I said "He is the last, and I have caught enough." Abruptly, all the remaining school disappeared.
On return for the long run toward Ocean City, as the sea calmed down and the ice chest had overflowed, we hoisted six tuna flags, and just one dolphin pennant, since that was all we had. At the dock, we counted--six 40 plus pound yellowfin tuna, and could I believe it?--37 dolphin. Remember, that the fillets of this fish are the celebrated "mahi mahi". That's what friends (with freezers) are for!
I remember this off shore fishing outing well. We turned out to be the only boat foolhardy enough to have gone out that day, especially since the fishing had been very poor for several weeks before the hurricane as well. Oh, yes I remember the hammering in the post-hurricane storm--and, incidentally, did I get sick, too?