(Blog post by Dan)
Dad and I have always wanted to go fishing for big game fish, Tuna and whatever else dare get on our line thinking we wouldn’t bring that monster in. The week of the Fourth of July, Dad and I went down to the fishing center in Ocean City, MD to inquire about how to get on a charter. We met a couple of really friendly women that walked us through the process of signing up for makeup charter. We waited a few days for the fishing center to book us a trip the weekend after 4th of July. We booked a date and only needed to be at the boat by 4:15 a.m. to be on the move by 4:30 a.m. We just needed to be on-time and bring food and drinks for ourselves and they would take care of the rest. A few days out, the fishing center called and left a message on my voice mail reminding us to be on time and to be there by 3:15 a.m. as the captain wanted to leave by 3:30 a.m.….great! Me and my forward planning booked myself a red-eye flight on Thursday to get me there on Friday. I figured I just needed to make it to 9 or 10 p.m. so that I could sleep for a few hours before our 2 a.m. alarm. Dad and I ran around the night before getting sandwiches and planning the cooler. Mom got us non-drowsy Dramamine. It’s very important to get the non-drowsy version as the ladies in the Fishing Center told us about the volume of people that get the drowsy kind and sleep through the fishing.
Fishing day came and by 2:15 a.m. we were in the car and heading down US 1. I looked at Dad and said, “Wow! I can’t believe we’re doing this and then I chuckled to myself as Dad kept saying we needed to leave extra time to get there. I’m thinking, “Wow Dad, I get that you want to be early, but 2:15 seems a bit excessive to go 15 miles down the road.” Well, sure enough we needed that extra time. It was 2:15 a.m. and the Friday night festivities we’re coming to a close and the volume of taxis, Ubers, and designated drivers on the road was pretty incredible. Our drive was filled with some laughs at the volume of over served party goers from the night before. If you can imagine “Night of the Living Dead” in summer and beach gear, that pretty much sums it up. The sidewalks looked straight. The pedestrians walking down them were not navigating them well. I think we counted two “Flip Flop Blow Outs” and a handful of people doing their civic volunteer work in holding up a series of telephone poles. Needless to say it was an entertaining ride.
We enter the fishing parking lot at 3:10 a.m. and quickly grabbed our stuff and headed down the dock to “The Game Changer”. The Game Changer is a 38’ Sunny Briggs Custom Carolina. We got to the boat and met Matt the Captain and Ricky the First Mate. Two other fine gentlemen were on the boat by the names of Steve and George. They were a father and son pairing as well and looking forward to spending the day together fishing. All in all everyone was a little bleary eyed, but excited to catch some fish. Now I remind you, there was one very specific requirement, be on-time. The time ticked and we were a 3:28 a.m. and the First Mate, said “Well someone’s about to be left behind.” At 3:31 a.m. hit the Captain came down and gave us the safety speech. All of that info hit the four of us like Advanced Calculus and Artificial Intelligence Theory work. I remember a few things from the talk.
*Don’t fall off the boat during the trip out.
*If the Captain and First Mate are incapacitate, Channel 119 calls the coast guard.
*If there’s an emergency, use the GPS button on the bridge incase nothing works.
We stowed everything and the Captain said we would be powering out for a little over 3 hours. The boat wasn’t much for creature comforts but the bed downstairs looked very inviting. The additional 10+ fishing poles all over it looked uncomfortable and the speed at which Ricky the First Mate was prepping and working it seemed best not to mess with his system. It was a few minutes after 3:30 a.m. and the Captain said, “I’m not going to impact your day and wait for these other two guys. Let’s go!”
The boat made its way out of the marina and through the harbor. I grabbed a picture below of the quiet scene leaving the marina. We went through the inlet and the tide was coming in quickly. The boat went from calm to something that reminded me of one of Evan’s bounce house birthdays. Once on open water, the captain put the hammer down and there wasn’t much to do but find a spot to enjoy the ride and hopefully sleep a little. Once the First Mate was done with his initial routine, he asked one of our fishing mates for the pillow along the window to which he grabbed a spot with his pillow and off to sleep he went.
Dad and I traded spots to lie down for a bit. We both had an opportunity to close our eyes, but I’m not sure that either of us actually slept. I was absolutely looking forward to fishing but for those of you that know me know that there are few things that I enjoy more when we are on the east coast than watching the sunrise out of the ocean. It represents the gift of time that we all have and the day ahead. Did you know we have the gift of 86,400 seconds a day. I like to use some of my seconds to see this when I can.
The sky was starting to brighten and the ocean became more calm. I captured a series of photos from this time in the morning. The sky was a series of colors from light blue to yellow, orange and purple. The water was dark marine blue and moving across the horizon like artwork in motion. In that moment I thought about the Captain. It’s pretty amazing that he gets to see this and experience this all of the time. Now that I’m old enough to know it’s pretty silly to be jealous of another person’s chosen profession, but in that moment I was super jealous that he gets to see this all the time and that there isn’t a single cell signal or way of be bothered by social media up there. That must feel pretty amazing. The sun crested the horizon and lit the entire ocean and it quickly went from a deep marine color to a bright blue. The sun moved up the sky faster than I anticipated. Dad and I were well into our coffee’s. Thanks Shawn for the Yeti cups as we were four hours into having put coffee in our cups and it was still hot! Dad and I we’re happy to be out of the cabin and on the boat deck.
The boat was still powering out at full speed as the First Mate went to work. I watched him thread hooks and rigs with precision while the boat was bouncing along the water with amazement. The gear was prepped and ready. At 7 a.m. we were given the green light to start fishing. We had made it to the fishing grounds and there weren’t many boats there yet. Ricky put out multiple teasers, set three lines out each side, a couple of short lines and a couple of long lines. All in all, I think there were 11 lines in the water in about 5 minutes. Ricky looked at us and told us to get ready. Some of us got up right away and a couple of us stayed resting. Dad and I were outside hoping the fish would bite early. The first mate gave us some instructions about what would happen when we hooked a fish and what we would need to bring in. After not much sleep, those instructions seemed less complicated then the safety instructions, but I figured I would just start reeling in. Ricky seemed as if he was going to have no problem letting me know what I was doing wrong…lol.
Everyone was anxious for a fish to get on. The tuna needed to come up towards the surface for feeding. We trolled the grounds for a while. The fish weren’t biting right away. Dad and I made sure we had on sunscreen. Our first mate was visibly bothered that the fish weren’t hitting right away. So bothered when he saw Dad’s choice of sunscreen he decided to let him know that his sunscreen was not a good one and relieved Dad of his bottle and removed it from the boat. Apparently his sunscreen was terrible. I found this hilarious
No fish yet…so conversation set in. George and Steve our fishing mates and Ricky the First Mate all developed what I like to call the “local” drawl. For most of you looking for a reference, it’s southern mid-Atlantic speak and if your ear is not trained to decipher it, you may do what I did for most of the conversation “What did you say” and “I didn’t get that.” Both guys were very kind and enjoyed a day out fishing. The funniest conversation was Steve telling us how many people he has met that do not know that Delaware exists nor where it is located. That was a pretty funny conversation as we meet people all the time in Seattle that look at us like we’re crazy when we explain where we’re going and why Julie and Evan spend so much time here in the summer. We absolutely adore where Mom and Dad have relocated to and we look forward to every visit no matter the season.
Our first bite was a white Marlin. The fish crested out of the water. The First Mate grabbed the pole and handed it to me and yelled to start reeling. The line went from rapidly dragging out of the real to nothing in about 10 seconds. We brought the line in and it was cleanly severed by Mr. Marlin. The big Marlin Tournament was the following week in OC, MD. The first mate said if we brought him in, people might be upset we didn’t leave him for the tournament. Steve proceeded to say that he would be just fine with people being upset if we brought that fish in. We needed that, it got our blood pumping and we were hoping that was the start of some Tuna hitting. We fished for a few more hours. There were pods of Pilot Whales all around us. They were absolutely amazing to see. The fishing grounds were busy. The Captain and the First Mate felt that the tuna were staying down because there were so many boats in the area. He decided to take us fishing for some other fish. We were disappointed, but we wanted to get some fish on.
The captain took us a few miles away to an area where there was some ocean grasses. The water was so clear that we could see down 50’ or more. We could see the Mahi Mahi. We baited up and went to work. The Mahi were a fun fish to catch. Lots of fight and good sizes. We caught 5 or so in the first spot. We moved around from spot to spot. The fish were smart. We had to switch up the bait to keep them interested. Over the next couple of hours, we caught 29 Mahi Mahi and Dad brought in the biggest one. See picture below. We made quite the mess bringing in that much fish, but we had a great time and a lot of laughs. Everyone caught multiple fish.
The Captain presented us with an option at that point. We could keep working the Mahi or we could go for Tuna again. At that point we were about 55 miles out and we would troll for Tuna in the direction of home. Everyone unanimously felt like we caught enough Mahi and let’s go for Tuna again. The First Mate was thrilled with this idea as he had neatly stowed and put away all the Tuna gear earlier. I believe he said “Sure, let’s try everything today.” LOL! He was a good sport and he had been working hard all day. He set the lines again and we pulled out really big gear and set out the heavy poles.
At one point he hooked both long line poles with extra straps to the internal cleats in the boat. I thought if something hit that pole that required that backup strap, it’s going to be a gnarly fight to get it in the boat. I immediately went at got a belt b/c if something that big hit I wanted to be ready. Both Dad and I had on belts. Ricky the first mate worked the lines and the teaser sets. He also cursed at the fish quite a bit for their lack of biting on the lines that he worked so hard to set. One of my stellar moments for the day came shortly after this. I was looking off in the distance and I could see a few other boats and large sprays coming up into the air. I said to Ricky, “Are those guy cheating and dropping explosives?” He looked at me like I was a simple man and just said “Whales”. I got a good laugh at myself for that one.
The weather was amazing. Dad and I each had a beer to celebrate the Mahi Mahi we caught and had something to eat. It was a pretty incredible day out on the Ocean. The weather was perfect, the water was pretty calm and everyone caught fish. We fished for Tuna for another couple of hours at which time we had to call it quits and head in. It was late afternoon at this point and we still had a good ride in front of us to get back. The first mate worked the equipment back in at which point I jumped in to help. Once the equipment was stowed the Captain put the throttle down and we were headed for home.
Amazingly, Dad and I were still awake. At this point, we had taken probably five or so 10 minute cat naps but that was it. We had 29 Mahi Mahi in the ice box and we were really pleased that we were bringing home fresh fish. Dad and I sat together on a little bench that fit the two of us for the ride back. We chatted about the day, some of our experiences, the equipment that we used, what we learned and what we would like to do if we were to do this again. By the way, we are totally doing this again!
As we came back into Ocean City, we could see the crowds at the beaches and the amusements beginning to fill. A handful of pelicans crossed our bow in formation as we entered the bay.
We made it back to the dock. We started to hear it was a dry day for most of the boats out there that day. Most boats came back empty. A few caught Tuna’s. We lined our catch up on the dock and took pictures. The Tuna tournament down there brought in lots of crowds. The boats all coming back is certainly a bit of ceremony and fun to watch. There were kids and lots of people coming over to see our catch and that was fun for us. All the first mates from the different boats were on the docks talking about their day and making fun of some of the customer experiences they had. Our first mate brought our fish over to the cleaning area. We said thanks to the Captain for a fun day. We learned a lot and I’m glad I didn’t need to hit the GPS button upstairs on the bridge.
It was fun being back on land and being able to communicate with Julie. We came back much later than anticipated which caused some worry. I think each of us took home more than 10 pounds of Mahi each once we split it all up. Dad and I made the trip home. The house was full and everyone was waiting to have fresh fish. We came home to lots of smiling faces and light hugs as apparently we smelled like something only Chewy could really appreciate. Lots of kisses from him. We cleaned up, got the grill going and cooked up our fresh catch. Everyone enjoyed it. Everything tasted great and we spent the rest of the evening telling stories from the day. I went to sleep real easily that night and didn’t wake up until the sun was well into the sky. Between the red eye Thursday and fishing from 2 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, I was alright using some of my 86,400 seconds on Sunday to just rest.
Chasing Waves 