Tidelines – Winter 2012-2013
The McMullan family, of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center, has little left to prove in the game of offshore fishing, but you couldn’t tell by watching Capt. Barrett McMullan work tirelessly on a recent fishing trip together to produce an article for the winter issue of Fisherman’s Post Newspaper.
The problem Barrett was up against that Sunday morning in early December was one that is often fought but rarely heard about in fishing shows and articles. The media standard is lots of action and impressive fish because that’s what the audience demands. The reality, though, that everyone who fishes knows all too well is that sometimes, despite our best efforts, the fish just don’t cooperate.
The idea of a reality-based article focusing on a tough day of fishing where little is caught may be better in theory than in execution. The truth is always tempting, though, and that’s exactly why I want to write my Tidelines column about the unglamorous side of fishing—not just because our readers may identify and/or empathize with a fishing story where little happens, but because it provides me with the opportunity to say thank you once again to Barrett and Rube for their perseverance and willingness to invest a long day on the water to help Fisherman’s Post produce content.
So here’s the story of the long road to a single grouper.
The stage that Sunday was set for a banner day. Max and I met Barrett and Rube at 6:00 am at OIFC, loaded up all kinds of gear onto their 36’ Yellowfin with triple Yamaha 300s, and headed out (rather quickly) to a spot that had rumored a bluefin tuna bite the day before.
The water temperature was correct, bait was in the area, birds were working, a whale was working the same waters, and over the radio a boat had already reported a bluefin strike that lasted two minutes before pulling off.
Bluefin fishing, even under the best of conditions in NC waters, is “hero or zero” fishing, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise that on our trip, tape recorders and cameras in hand, we didn’t catch the first bluefin of the season off Brunswick County.
Plan B was king mackerel, and like clockwork we pulled up to a wreck southwest of Frying Pan Tower and sabikied some live cigar minnows. First stop—no bait lasted more than 60 seconds before being found by a barracuda (or a bonito finding our bait and then the bonito being found by a barracuda). Second stop—no bait lasted more than 30 seconds before being found by a houndfish. Third and fourth stop—we couldn’t give away a cigar minnow.
By this time we’re about 10 miles from the Black Jack Hole, so Barrett put us to task on finding a wahoo. He quickly had out an eight-line spread covering varying depths and applying different color presentations to the rigged ballyhoo. No bait. No birds. No marks on the recorder. And ultimately, no wahoo.
Plan D, do a little bottom fishing, wasn’t meant to be a trip saver. The idea was that after the kings and wahoo had been caught and the photos taken, Rube could also catch a triggerfish for dinner on the way back in. The situation now, though, called for bottom fish to be the new focus of the article.
And that’s exactly what happened. At first, once again, we had to sort through a barrage of undesirables, as rudderfish quickly hit both the squid strips and left over live cigar minnows. Then we sorted through a few grunts and sea bass (also a whopper 5 lb. beeliner), before finally pulling a nice gag grouper over the rails.
The real value of the fishing trip ultimately wasn’t the gag grouper or material for an article, but rather the opportunity to see Barrett battle first-hand the mental games we’ve all played on a tough day. He thought about what else he could be doing instead of trolling and trolling and trolling (watching Sunday football comes to mind). He got frustrated, repeatedly, but kept it in check, continued to crack jokes, and always had each bait in the spread perfectly presented.
So what do you do when you fish all day for a single grouper? You celebrate that beautiful grouper, and you thank Barrett for everything.
Heading into the holidays, I wish you all the joy that a single grouper can bring.
