Confessions of a Lackadaisical Fisher

‘Do you fish while sailing’, people ask. It’s simple question – at least, on the surface.

Without hesitation, I almost always answer; yes. And in fact, more often than not, I do fish on an ocean passage. But, deep down, I know that what they’re really asking is: ‘do you catch fish?’ The answer to that question is, one might say, more nuanced.  

The truth is, I’m not very good when it comes to actually catching fish. And, while I enjoy fishing, and occasionally catching them, I’m unlikely to ever get serious enough about the endeavour to catch more fish.  

This stands in sharp contrast to my Finnish relatives and forbearers, all of whom seemed to be enthusiastic and very successful fishers. As homesteaders, fish and game was a big part of their diet – so, it either came naturally or the family went hungry.

Growing up, fishing was always a focal-point of family holidays with my grand, and great grand, parents.

The sudden tug of a fish taking my bait would immediately trigger a jolt of adrenalin. Maybe it was because of how infrequently this happened. Fish are devious. When you’re ready for them, nothing. They’d seem to wait until my mind wondered elsewhere. Only then would they bite.

As a kid, I remember being fascinated by fishing gear, lures, in particular. I’d marvel at the thought and creativity behind all those garish colours, strange shapes, flamboyant tail-feathers, and delicate spinning bits. To me, those crazy spoons, spinners, plugs, and flies bore an odd resemblance to the various bobbles in my mum’s jewelry box.

Aboard Turtlebones I’ve accumulated a fair number of lures. Compared to the ones used in freshwater, these ones are gigantic. As is the rest of the gear. Instead of dainty 10-pound test, the line on my saltwater reels is the diameter of spaghetti – 60 or 100 pound test.

My intent isn’t to hook some kind of trophy-fish. Big fish are a problem. They require way too much work – taking down, or reducing sails to slow the boat down. Big fish also have a tendency to get under the boat, where they can get tangled up in the rudder or propeller.  

Instead, I’m looking for dinner-size fish – ideally under ten pounds. The kind you can just overpower and drag in, without interrupting the sailing. Once aboard, a little cheap booze into the gills dispatches them instantly.

While I might want small fish, it doesn’t always work out that way. The really big ones, mercifully, just snap the line and disappear. On the way up to Mexico from Costa Rica, I was having a particularly bad run of luck, even by my lowly standards – a week without any fish. Then I caught, what presumably was the stupidest marlin in the Pacific. At 80-pounds, it was puny, for a fish that can grow to over one thousand pounds.

Usually, I find a measure of contentment knowing that I’m helping to improve the fish gene pool by taking out the dullard. Nonetheless, the marlin was returned to the sea.

Early on in this passage, the crew began asking whether we should throw out a fishing line.  Each time I’d remind them that our freezer was chalk-full of food, mostly fish, already. “We have no place to put it” I’d say, noting that a good-size Mahi-Mahi could easily fill half our freezer.

But as the trip wore on, and food in the freezer was eaten, that line increasing lost merit. It sounded too much like the excuse it was.

Normally, two lines are put out – one on each side. However, the new StarLink antenna now occupies the rod-holder on the starboard side. After carefully selecting a lure, we deployed a solitary line.  Predictably, as dusk approached, we hauled it back in, after another successful day of fishing.

Successful not because we caught fish. We didn’t. Successful because we all enjoyed the possibly that, at any moment, we might hear the reel buzzing as the line pays out, and see the rod bend to the weight of something yet unseen on the other end.

For me, the joy of fishing, like any form of lottery, is mostly about the chance something special might happen. Something that will never happen unless you have a line in the water. So, it will go out again tomorrow. And, just maybe…

Bill