And another one bites the dust...

Since I began bluewater fishing in 2008 it has been a series of ups and downs. This year certainly had more of the latter than the former with bad weather and generally bad fishing. But on the last few trips things have really picked up on the old OI, with much more consistent action and lots of meat in the ice box.

Over the years we've had our share of successes, with just about every big game fish available in the Northeast gracing the OI at one time or another. The staples of yellowfin and mahi are frequent visitors to the fishbox. And lately there's been a strong surgence of our nightime billfish the sword.

And who could forget the 700 lb blue marlin in Veatches canyon in 2010. I certainly won't ever forget that fish.

 Even the elusive wahoo has made an appearance at the OI once or twice. Mmm he is tasty.

White marlin? Definate check....

 Bigeyes? You bet. Who could forget the double bigeye hookup in West Atlantis that made Clark Winchell and his First Mate Sleaveless Tee famous

Mako sharks? There have been a couple. Bluefin? God too many. Skipjacks? You better believe it!

But one species has continued to elude me. Odly enough, they aren't stereotypically all the difficult to catch. The Longfin Albacore. The Penguin. The Chicken of the Sea. Why have I never been able to put an albie on the deck? No idea. They are elusive. Or something like that.

Well Albie, today I cross you off the list. The penguin has landed. A few of his other buddies made it to the cooler as well.

The yellowfin tuna (and four more of his bretheren)

 The Wahoo (Of the four we hooked, he was the only one who failed to saw through the leader.)

And there you are Mr. Penguin, with your soft chunk white albacome meat. It took a while for us to finally meet, but you're welcome on board my boat any time.

2012 White Marlin Open

The Hard Four, at right, in the Marina. 

At some point earlier this year my buddy John Libre (Bates '02) calls and says there is a free spot on his brother-in-law's boat for some fishing tournament and do I want to go fishing in Maryland in August. I tell him I'm interested, but not sure I can make it work schedule-wise, and let me get back to him about it. He calls me again at the end of July to remind me that I never got back to him. So, I check the calendar, figure out how to make it work with the wife, and start to figure out how to get to Ocean City, Maryland. I'm thinking "awesome, I'm going fishing, I'll get to meet some new fishing buddies, and we'll probably have a cocktail or two."

About 1-week later I'm on a shuttle bus from the Philadelphia Airport to what appears to be the back parking lot of the Philadelphia Airport, but is actually the home of the tiny-ass plane that is taking me to Ocean City. My carry-on bag was almost too big to be checked on this plane. I thought they were going to check to see if the weight of the passengers was evenly distributed on each side of the aisle. On the final descent into Ocean City the pilot didn't say "flight attendants prepare for landing," he just turned over his shoulder and yelled "Elaine, sit down!"

John picks me up at the airport and I find two coozied can beers at my feet, and on the 45min drive to Ocean City I begin to realize that this is going to be some more serious fishing than I anticipated. Turns out we're in the 2012 White Marlin Open, the largest Marlin tournament in the world...something that John failed to mention previously. At this point I begin to remember him saying there was a cash prize, which I had in my head as $250,000. Turns out I was off by a 0. It was a $2,500,000 purse. Oh.

So here is the cast of characters that I meet upon my arrival at our condo at the marina:

John Libre - He significantly undersold this trip when he invited me.

Frank Coulson - Brother-in-law of John Libre, owner and captain of the 36' Contender "Hard Four," and all around great dude. I would alternately call him "Boss" all week.

John "Zoo" Andrae - real name John, but was a child model and got this nickname from Zoolander as a result. Obviously. He's the fishing captain out of New Jersey and to put it simply, knows how to fucking fish. He would want to murder us 14 times during the course of 3 days.

Todd Saylor - Frank's buddy from way back and college, who now lives in Cancun where he owns a bar and sells oceanfront lots. And yes, he is exactly as fun as you're thinking he probably is.

Chet - the fucking new guy who thought he was just going fishing.

So there are 250 boats vying for this $2.5million purse, and as the 36' center-console we are definitely on the smaller side. In the marina we're surrounded by 50'+ fishing boats of various ports of origin, with various fishing and/or sexual innuendo names, and teams of matching-shirt and matching beer-gut men. We're hearing about how hot the White Marlin bite has been the past few weeks, and at this point everyone is expecting there to be a lot of competition for top prize. 

Tuesday morning we're up and out of the marina by 4am, and motoring out towards Baltimore Canyon for about 4 hours, with the triple 300s blaring. Zoo is driving, we're all sacked out in the waterproof beanbags on the deck of the boat. These things are awesome, especially if you've been over-served the night before. We haven't been, yet, so it's just a nice treat to get a few more hours of sleep in. 

Lines go in at 8:30am and within minutes we hear other boats calling in releases. Long morning of nothing, and then Frank hooks into one a little after 1pm and fights it into the boat. We deck-check it, and it is under-size, so it goes back in. We have a few more hits throughout the day, but don't land anything else. I recall the ride back in being somewhat somber, but I was also passed back out in the beanbags for most of it. As we head under the drawbridge we run a single white marlin flag (upside down to indicate it was a release) up the outrigger. After we pull into the marina we start to look around and see that there are a couple boats with multiple flags, but quite a few of the big fishing yachts are flag-less…so we're doing above average.

Wednesday morning are we're discovering that Tuesday evening was a bad time to create a new bloody mary recipe, and a worse time to drink said recipe out of 24oz commemorative Slim Jim mugs. The beanbags were pleasant yesterday, necessary today. 8:30am and our lines are out again, and we're starting to look like a team…or at least we're not tripping over ourselves as much and Zoo seems to not be audibly sighing as much from the tuna tower. A little after 9am and a left outrigger explodes. Frank grabs it, and there's a nice white marlin on. Then our right-flat rod blows up as well, and I grab it. As Libre and Saylor clear the rest of the lines Frank's fish drops the hook, but mine is on. 

After what seemed like a much longer fight than it was, I'm sweating Tito's vodka and Old Bay seasoning and we've got another white marlin on the deck that is too short. Later that afternoon Frank adds another released white marlin to our tally, and we miss 7 hook-ups. Zoo is not pleased, nor should he be. We come in flying two upside-down flags. Same deal as Tuesday, there are a lot of boats flying 1 or 0 flags on the way in. As we pull into the dock we see a boat 5 slips down has some unexpected company: 6 US Marshals and another half-dozen Ocean City cops. Not good news. Rumors are flying on the dock, and while we never found out the exact details, the working title for this blog post was originally  "Don't register your $2 million dollar boat in a very public fishing tournament when you're wanted by US Marshalls for tax evasion, or you will be lead away in handcuffs from the dock and have your boat impounded in front of everyone." But that felt a little wordy. 

So after all that commotion, and after the Coast Guard has come and helped impound the boat, we find out that after the weigh-in that night there is only 1 White Marlin on the board, everything else has been under-weight. And as it stands then, that White Marlin will win $900,000. Now we know why Zoo is distraught, we were 1 good fish away from a big win. Fuck. I'm due to fly out too early the next day to go out fishing. Double fuck. I change my flight at dinner, there's a Million-Dollar fish out in dem waters.

Thursday morning starts with some action, but not the kind we're looking for. We hit a few schools of Tuna and Mahi Mahi and are trying to get our lines in before they can take all our bait. It strikes me that I would have been content catching these fish on the flight down, in fact on another day these hook-ups would have been considered a good day of fishing, but not today.  The afternoon gets hot, bulas are pulled over every inch of flesh possible to avoid the sun, and we keep trolling SW in chase of the 82 degree water that they've been hitting in. We've got an iPod on shuffle playing tunes on the boat, and "Dancing on the Ceiling" comes on. "White Marlin love Lionel Ritchie" Zoo deadpans from the tower. We get another white marlin to the boat. Undersized again. Fuck. But damn white marlin are fun to catch.

Libre,  Coulson, and Saylor with a fish that looks big enough to me.

We're hearing one boat over the radio that has released over 5. The 3:30pm lines-out deadline creeps up on us. It is a different kind of end-of-day. Usually it is a sunset or a trip departure that calls it, this time it is a call over the radio saying lines-out. The somber mood while de-rigging fades quickly as the disappointment over not being in the money fades to the realization that we got into a good number of fish and had a hell of a time doing so. The music is turned up, man-hugs and high-fives are given, and coors lights downed in seconds.We get back to the dock and clean the boat. Not a lot of flags flying that day, but there's still one more day of the tournament (not for us, we'd already fished our 3 days). The lone White Marlin is still on the board, and worth a lot more money per pound than that fisherman first expected. 

Beers start going down pretty fast, showers are taken, and we head to "Seacrets" which Zoo tells us is the must-go destination in Ocean City. Now, Ocean City looks like a lot of kinda-sad seasonal destinations on the east coast, with a lot of half-functional neon, ferris wheels with questionable structural integrity, and mini-golf courses across the street from mini-golf courses. And a fucking "Sunsations" on every-other block selling beach crap. So, admittedly my expectations for this Jamaican-themed establishment weren't sky-high on the way there. Turns out this place is 5 acres, all covered in sand, with at least 6 different "scenes" ranging from restaurant, to in-the-ocean beach bar, to nightclub. There's a Rastafarian band lead by a fat white guy, and they are far better than that description sounds. There's also a Jamaican bobsled in the courtyard that we'd partake in, obviously. 

The next morning my tiny-ass flight out of Maryland is delayed and I check the White Marlin Open standings on my phone. We're in 93rd place overall out of 250 boats. Not bad. Oh, and the prize of that single White Marlin had gone up…to $1.4million. Not a bad week of fishing for that guy.

Here's a video that I put together. The song you may not know is "Knock, Knock" by Mac Miller, a 20-year-old white rapper out of Pittsburgh who is better than that description sounds.

Password is flounder

2012 White Marlin Open - Hard Four from Chet Clem on Vimeo.

Last Taste of Summer

I threw together the last summer video footage I had from a canyon trip to Oceanographer. The video is a little jumpy, but the F-ing SONG... I love it. Can't get that shit outta my head! Thanks to Tyler for getting me on the J Boog...



Goodbye summer. Hello long cold winter of frozen guides and being outfished by girls and one armed men....

First Canyons Excursion

Since Captain Lane started venturing offshore to the canyons, I have been envious of those fortunate enough to join him. Living on the west coast for the past few years has prevented me from getting in on the action, which, as evidenced by the content on this blog, has been quite solid.

A few weeks ago, a family wedding just north of Boston got me out east for the first time since 2009. My girlfriend Tina and I decided to made a week out of it giving us time to visit Boston as well as the Cape. Midweek, Poseidon provided a glorious weather window for a run down south. Keith made the call - it was finally time to see for myself whether the canyons lived up to the hype.

As the video below shows, the trip was a rousing success. The bite was comparatively slow, but the weather was perfect. Tina caught her first fish ever, a 60 lb white marlin during the afternoon troll.

On the night drift, Keith hooked up on something very large one one of the chunk lines, but within minutes the fish had managed to wrap all 5 lines, creating a massive tangle that nearly spelled disaster for the trip. After the fish snapped off (we were unable to hand line it in), Keith assessed the damage. He was able to salvage all but one of the rods by jury-rigging new top-shots. By morning we were back on the troll. We snagged 5 yellowfin about mid morning, but nothing else. Even some mahi that we spotted loitering by lobster pots were unwilling to bite, so we wound up are lines and headed back to shore.

We ended our trip with an Ahi sushi and poke feast at Jgromma's pad in Cotuit, followed by the usual antics one would expect with such a crowd.

Thanks again Captain, you gave us an experience we won't soon forget!

Atlantis STEELE

Canyons III- Enter the Billfish

I think I figured out why Apple Blend Skoal so effectively catches fish while other blends do not. It’s the smell. For some reason, fish like the smell of apple blend. Perhaps it closely mimics the scent of some form of bait, or perhaps it’s just a random evolutionary quirk, but when several fisherman are enjoying a lip of apple skoal, and spitting into the sea, a skoal slick sets up behind the boat and fish are attracted to it. When trolling, this slick disseminates through the water column back over the trolled baits. The combination of scent and visual stimulus of the baits is too much for fish to resist. It’s science! But, I digress….

My apple blend skoal theory was put to the test again this week. Canyon Run III was a last minute decision on my part. The weather window opened up and I knew it would be my final opportunity to head south this season. Jon Pilcher, the Tuna Nut, asked me if I wanted to make the run south with him. I cleared it with my boss and went down to the Cape Tuesday night. Plan was to leave Wednesday morning for the Atlantis Canyon area. “Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis, and I still have my hands on the wheel”. Billy Joel brought great honor to trolling Atlantis Canyon in his epic ballad, “The Downeaster Alexa”, and I was pretty pumped just to get out there. It would be Tuna Nut, this dude GW who I hadn't met, and me. A small crew of three making the big run south.

Recent fishing reports had been pretty solid. Over the weekend, a lot of boats took tuna on a temp break between Atlantis and West Atlantis canyons. Our plan was to fish that general area on the troll during the day and deep drift the canyons at night for swords. As we were leaving the dock, a guy Jon knew on the “Salty Dog” rolled into Falmouth Harbor after returning from the canyons. His report was not good at all. 1 mahi and nothing else. Totally dead, not even a real bite. Seas as rough as he had ever seen out there, etc. With that report, we looked over his budget 1980 Silverton, declared him an amateur and cast off the dock lines. Next stop the canyons.

Two hours later we rolled into blue water just north of Atlantis. Lines went in and we worked southeast along the shelf in the direction of Veaches Canyon. The water looked largely dead. No bird life to be seen, but there were dolphins moving around in different pods. We started working the high fliers and were able to pull decent mahi off roughly half the fliers we passed. We also stumbled upon the mother load of all dolphin in a crazy school. We pounded this school hoping to find yellowfin underneath but our efforts went without fortune. They were friendly creatures though. You could reach under the boat and touch them!
We continued southeast out of the mammal pods when we had our first billfish encounter. A white marlin revealed itself in the spread and began a slashing attack on the green machine spreader bar. For no less than 20 seconds the marlin attacked the bar as we watched and eagerly hoped it would eat the stinger baits. The marlin then disappeared for two seconds before coming up behind a jet head lure run down the middle of the spread. After speading 5 seconds attacking the jet head, the marlin disappeared. Thinking the show was over, we looked at each other with some disappointment. 10 seconds later, the far outside rigger which had an islander ballyhoo combo on it, got eaten. The white had taken the way way back bait. A short (and rather atypical) fight later, the marlin was in the boat. Unfortunately the marlin stayed down for the entire fight and didn’t jump like they usually do, but it was still cool to bring a billfish to the boat. We took a few photos of the release and back she went into the deep blue sea.




It was getting late and with darkness setting in at 630 these days we elected to run back west and set up over Atlantis for swords. By the time we had figured out the drift and positioned the boat, it was pitch black. Jon’s favorite type of fishing is sword fishing, and he is really an expert at rigging for and catching these fish. I learned a lot from watching how he rigged up and fished four sword baits. I look forward to greasing some swords next year using his techniques on the Edge. With lines at 200, 150, 100 and 75 feet below the surface, we drifted in 1500-2000 ft of water off the edge. Some hot burgers off the propane grill later and it was bed time. I laid down on the bow and Tuna Nut took first watch. I was just starting to fade off to sleep when a clicker ripped out three feet of line very quickly. Jon grabbed the rod and loosened the drag slightly. Then fish gave a long run off and Jon through the drag up to strike. It was on! We had hooked something legit. GW and I jumped into action and began clearing rods and setting Tuna Nut up in the harness. We fired up the engines so that we could position the boat as needed during the battle. The fish made some long tearing runs on the 50. At one point, it came up to the surface and we thought that we had lost it, only to come tight to it right under the boat. Then it dove again taking 150 yards of line right back to the bottom. This fish was a battler. Jon was getting worked over pretty good and gave me the rod to put some pressure on the fish. I was able to regain some line. I gave the rod back to Jon, I like to think after breaking the fish’s spirit, and he brought it closer to the boat while GW and I grabbed the gaffs. At roughly an hour after the bite, I slammed a gaff into the fishes head and it was game over!

This fish was a monster sword. 110 inches long to the end of the bill, 80 inches from the bottom jaw to the tail fork. Estimated 250+ pounds. A true canyon monster of the deep. It was awesome.

We got the lines back in and had a second hookup around 4 AM. This fish was smaller than the first, and we pulled the hook after 5 minutes. As the sun came up, we discussed options and elected not to troll for tuna based on the amount of fish we had to process. We decided to head straight back to the dock. The seas cooperated and we were back in Falmouth at 10 AM.

For me this was just another solid hookup in a season that has seen many. I am done for the year. I am now shifting my focus to a different sort of hook up, the kind that is available all year round. To all you BFC heroes out there, both near and far, give me a ring when you’re in Boston and we can head to the local watering hole and tell some fishing stories.

-The Captain