Chapter 11: Hal Abrams and the Galloping Marlin
Skipper Hal Abrams out of Wrightsville both lost and won the biggest fish fight of his career.
Several years ago Hal’s boat, the Pelican, was in the stream marlin hunting with a party of gung ho paratroopers out of Fort Bragg’s famous 82nd Airborne Division aboard. They’re tough like steel and would rather run than walk. Think paratrooper on the one hand and a mad, rampaging marlin on the other; and you get the classical confrontation of the irresistible force and the immovable object. It was all of that and a battle of the century kind of thing.
Hal’s mate, Tom Harriss, got the baits over at dawn; and the preliminary event took shape with a missed marlin strike that broke the line.
Then it happened. A huge blue marlin, estimated to weigh between six-hundred and six hundred fifty-pounds and to run fifteen feet in length, inhaled the bait. A
slug fest shaped up, and the spray didn’t settle for the next ten hours. “The reel smoked, and the mate poured water on that paratrooper and the reel the whole day. We started out at the edge of the Stream, and we backed down on that fish the rest of the day. Burned out one transmission following that marlin all over the ocean, and people on a Morehead headboat got a fine view from the proverbial fifty yard line watching that fish do his stuff,” Hal told it.
“We backed so far offshore it later took us two hours hooked up running to return to the starting point,” he added. And then it happened. One minute Sgt. Richard Query was holding the strain bent rod, and the next moment he had it all alone.
If we had been able to bring that fish in the cockpit, he would’ve stretched out with his tail at the fish box and his bill well inside the cabin. “Everybody on board, especially Sgt. Query, felt it was tough to lose that fish after having him on so long.
Emotions were mixed in the other direction too. The marlin had fought well, and all of us had great admiration for him. In a way it was fitting the fight ended as it did, and we probably would’ve released him. He’s still out there. Wait until next year,” Hal said.
I have seen good movies of game fish jumping, but this was the greatest I ever saw. Golly, I wish we could live that day over again. That fish was one worthy opponent. He deserved his freedom, and we had the best there was in that fish. He was one fine fish.”
Being a charter boat skipper fulfilled a lot of dreams for Hal Abrams, and in a number of ways the choice was essentially necessary. Hal was running a marine hardware store at Front and Dock Streets in Wilmington back in 1958 and had some major problems with tetrachloride – a grease cutting ingredient – that created some major health problems. Hal had been washing his hands in it. He went to Duke University Hospital with a blood and liver involvement and decided he simply was going to make a change.
He bought a boat in 1959, the Pelican, and started out getting the overflow from some of the charter boat skippers tied up at Municipal Dock. He treated his parties like visiting royalty, gave them good trips and the word spread that the Pelican was a good deal for offshore fishing. The business has grown ever since.
“Captain Eddy Haneman went up to Freeport, New York, with me when I bought the boat,” Hal remembered. “We drove up and ran the boat back to Wrightsville.”
And if necessity was a part factor in reaching the decision to enter the charter boat business, Hal gave the choice a little push, because “I enjoy fishing and can’t do without it. It’s something I really love. Hell, I do it twelve months a year now with the boat here at Wrightsville May to November; and December through April we operate out of Stuart, Florida.
Hal lights out for sunny Florida when the chill winds of late November whistle down Banks Channel. “For the past seven years, I’ve been going to Sailfish Marina in Stuart in the winter. I take my trailer, and it’s cheaper to live there than here, and there’s all that good fishing down there for billfish.
“When I first got down there, it was slow going. But when I backed my boat into the slip after making arrangements to work out of there, all the skippers came by to shake hands and tell me they were looking forward to having me there. It’s hard for an outsider to move into a charter boat dock sometimes.”
Hal says it’s billfish country in Stuart, the sailfish capitol of the world. “Billfish, dolphin, and wahoo – that’s it. There are kings off there between the beach and a reef that’s six miles off. The Stream is only eight miles offshore.
“It’s nothing to see eight or ten or twelve red release flags on a charter boat when she backs into her slip. You might see a boat with two or three white pennants and eight or ten red release flags at the end of a good day’s trolling. The incoming boats are met by big crowds of people who came down to see how it went for that day for the trolling boats.
“They have sailfish release tournaments on a point basis. Release a sail, and you’re awarded one hundred points. A sail with a tag is worth one hundred and twenty points. You catch one and kill him, and you don’t get any points at all. The boats are very much encouraged to release sails.”
And personal goals and ambitions? Hal says, “I’m realizing my ambitions right now. Got a nice boat with a pair of new diesels on board, fishing year round. It’s about time. Hell, I’m 61; and the only thing I still need for the boat is a loran C.
“There’s something about salt water fishing. Once you get the fever in you, you ain’t ever going to get rid of it. My wife knows I’m out in the sun and fresh air, and it’s lengthened my life. Rejuvenated me. Like I said, it’s a great life.”
The following text and photo was reprinted (with permission from Sam McDonald) from Bill McDonald’s book Song of Cape Fear. Bill’s photography and coverage of sport fishing appeared in the 70s and 80s in the Wilmington Star News, the State Port Pilot, the Coastal Carolinian, and the Island Gazette.
