TUNA BOIL
I once went on a five day fishing trip circa 1985 out of H&M landing in San Diego for blue fin tuna. The boat was the 90 foot “Royal Polaris. It carried twenty five customers and about eight crew. The boat was decked out with the latest eaves dropping (sonar) equipment to find the tuna (or dirty politicians, eh?). After 36hrs of poker and beer we found them. It was about sixty miles off coast of San Diego and Mexico (same) and the water was ‘boiling’.
Boiling means the boat shuts down all engines in the middle of hundreds of 35-45 pound blue fin tuna come to the surface, eating, and it looks like boiling water. The result was that twenty-five of us eager fishermen (the press) who wanted to catch ‘the big one’ tossed our baited hooks into the water.
When blue fin tuna get hooked they dive deep under the boat and run in circles. They are pure muscle and a hell-of-a-fight. The result on deck can be chaos. The crew was running from man to woman yelling to go over under over under over under with our rods and to use some IQ and circle the boat to avoid to avoid entanglement of lines.
The skipper warned on the outset of the trip that anybody who did not have the skill or who not abide the directions of “over under over under” would have their line cut.
When I hit a big fish on my 200lb tess and got tangled with others the head honchos cut us loose. I scrambled to tie a new hook on and forgot to bait it. Not bait, no matter. Some just need a shiny object when they are motivated and excited. In my case seven 40lb tuna took the shiny object.
Reminds me of today’s politics; somebody will always bite; then write about it like they authored “The Old Man and the Sea”.
Everybody at TMV excepted, of course.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, DC. Dedicated to serving others …