With country music playing lazily in the background, the blackfins rise to the surface to make some music of their own.
By TERRY TOMALIN
Published May 23, 2003
Anglers say that locating blackfin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
That sounds hard enough in farm country, but even harder when you live in Florida where there isn't much hay, let alone stacks of it.
"If we can just find the shrimp boats," Chris Clark said as he motored west into the open ocean. "If they moved, this could be a long day."
But Eddie Clemons didn't care. He had flown down from Cincinnati to take his mother fishing, and he knew that a day on the water beats a day in the office, no matter how the fish are biting.
"Blackfin tuna, eh?" he said to Clark. "You say they are good fighters."
Clemons had caught his share of gamefish before - king mackerel, grouper, snapper - but never a tuna.
These open ocean swimmers can be found from North Carolina to Brazil and throughout the Gulf of Mexico. Renowned for their fighting ability and deep, red flesh, blackfin are a favorite target of anglers, especially in the spring, when they come close to shore to feed off the culled catch from shrimp boats.
The big nets, trawled at night, usually pick up more than shrimp. So each morning, when the shrimpers discard the unwanted bycatch, the blackfin can be found waiting for a free meal beneath the boat.
"They are there all day, hanging deep," said Clark of Mega Bite Fishing Charters. "The trick is having plenty of bait so you can get them chummed up to the surface."
Clark, one of several captains in the Mega Bite fleet, filled his live well with scaled sardines with two throws of the net. Then he stopped and hooked some blue runners to fill out his arsenal.
"One of the biggest challenges of catching blackfin is keeping the bait away from the bonito," he said. "They are much faster than the tuna and usually beat them to the bait."
That's where the big blue runners come in.
"These baits are too big for the bonito," Clark said. "So the bonito stay away, and this gives the blackfin a chance to get the bait."
But a livewell full of bait was only half the battle. Clark still had to find the shrimpers, and not all boats are created equal.
"Some times you pull up on a boat and there is nothing there," Clark told Clemons. "But I've got one boat that always produces. I just hope we can find it."
Clark called his partner on the radio and told him to look for the Proud Mary.
"He's found it," Clark said. "Let's go."
When Clark arrived 20 minutes later, Mike Whitman aboard the Mega Bite II had already pulled several fish out from beneath the Proud Mary.
Clark started tossing wounded baits in the water as the soft strains of country music drifted from the shrimp boat. It didn't take long for the bonito to begin smacking baits, but Clark held off from dropping a line in the water.
"Let's wait until they work themselves into a frenzy," Clark said.
A few more handfuls of bait hit the water, then dark shadows began to appear from the deep.
"There they are," Clark said as he tossed a small blue runner into the melee.
But before the blackfin could take the bait, a swift little bonito swam in and snatched it away. Clark handed the rod to Clemons, who let his mother, Gloria, fight the fish.
"That's it for me," she said after finally bringing the fish under control.
Clark hooked another blue runner and tossed it into the swirling mass of fish. This time, a black-bodied torpedo got there first.
"He's got it," Clark yelled. "Fish on!"
Clemons held the rod tip high as the blackfin tore line from the reel and tried to escape to deep water. Clemons danced around the deck as the fish circled the boat, but angler pressure eventually forced it into submission.
Clark reached over and gaffed the fish, then handed it to sweating "Battling Eddie from Cincinnati," who posed for a photograph with his first blackfin tuna.
"Now what do you want to catch?" Clark asked the angler.
