Added on Monday, December 12, 2022  Fish Post

Guide Times – The Sword Doesn’t Say When

We pulled about 40-50 feet of line up and stopped to see if it was going to keep coming up or if it was going to go down, and this was the typical method for Capt. Rick Croson, of Living Waters Guide Service out of the Wrightsville Beach area, for hooking a swordfish once he sees the telltale swordfish bite, often a delicate rod twitch downward or side-to-side and then the bent rod lets go enough to come upwards.

Then we let another 40-50 feet back out, so the line and 10 lb. weight went back down, giving slack to the bait where that fish had a chance to swallow it. When we brought the rig back up a second time, you could see the rod start to load really slow. Rick put his Tideline in gear and drove away while I continued to retrieve line.

Though a select and growing group of anglers have been targeting them successfully for years off our coast, swordfish fever has recently ramped up in North Carolina. Rick has been trying to figure out and fine tune his swordfish system for the last five years. The challenge for him has changed from trying to generate bites, to trying to land a respectable percentage of the bites, to trying to get that landing percentage as close to 100% as possible, and in this perpetual swordfish pursuit, he’s been adjusting every part of the process—the gear, the terminal tackle, the bait, the drop, the drift, the hookset, and the fight.

This is Rick’s first year offering swordfish trips to his clients, and I was fortunate enough to get a date in November where the wind and waves were kind enough to allow us to make the 90+ mile run to 1600’ of water. We would be targeting a big area of muddy bottom where Rick had successfully landed the last eight swordfish in a row that he hooked.

I asked Rick why the hookset involves bringing the line up to then let it drop back down to then bring it up again.

“What you’re pulling up is the weight,” he started. “It’s 150-feet from the weight to the bait, so you’re making that bait look like it’s trying to swim up. You stop to see if you get a bite again. As soon as we stopped with your fish, we got another bite, so you release the line about 40-50 feet and that makes the bait look like it’s falling, like it’s been hit and wounded, and that drop also gives the fish enough time to come back around and eat it.”

From my vantage point, every detail of the hookset had been methodical and scientific, from the rise and drop of the line, to the decision of when to commit to bringing up the line more than 40-50 feet and putting the boat in gear, but Rick acknowledged that there’s always an element of instinct, too.

“It’s all a guess about when to put the boat in gear,” he continued. “We know he’s been on there enough. We just keep taking line and keep taking more line, and I push the boat forward at about 5-6 mph.”

You could tell the fish was straight up and down and swimming away with the bait because as we were driving away, the line angle from the rod never changed. It just stayed straight up and down which means the fish was swimming with us.

Rick uses PENN 70s with custom Hooker electric reels set at 32 lbs. of drag, but now that the reel was stalling out some, he adjusted the drag down to 18 lbs. While I was anxious to bring the fish up from the deep as quickly as possible, Rick was in no rush.

Rick told me why he’s never in a hurry to quickly bring up a hooked swordfish, “You got to think about it. There’s a 10-pound lead that’s 150-feet away from that fish that he’s now dragging around, plus there’s tension that we’re putting on him, so the fish is feeling pressures from different angles. We want him to swim around and fight that weight for as long as he will do it.”

My sword had stalled out the reel at various times, but it never gave us any big drag pulls. In fact, the fish had come up relatively easy, and soon we saw the pink marker. The line’s all one color, so to let you know that you’re coming up to the loop in the line where the long line clip and the weight snaps in, a pink wrap on the line gives a visual clue that you’re about to hit that lead loop. The pink wrap also signals that it’s time for the angler to decide how to finish the fight.

The beauty of the custom Hooker reel is that the electric motor and power cord are removable, so Rick can give his clients the choice of either finishing the fight with electric power and the rod in the rod holder or selecting to remove the electric components and let the angler engage the fish by hand cranking in standup gear.

Hand cranking was an easy decision.

I was fitted for the harness back before we dropped the first bait, and now that the pink marker was in sight, I put on the harness and Powell Holding, Rick’s mate, connected it to the reel while Rick prepped me for one of the more delicate parts of the fight—removing the 10 lb. weight from the line.

“When you see pink, you make sure you’re retrieving slow enough to give me enough time to reach down and grab the weight and lift it off the line and put it away,” Rick instructed. “If you’re retrieving too fast, I can’t get the lead off, and if you’re going too slow, then you might give the fish slack.”

Immediately after Rick removed the weight, he popped two buttons and removed most of the electrical components from the reel. I was now able to walk around the boat with the fish, wherever it went, and Rick no longer had to work the boat as much. Another benefit to being mobile is that Adam Meyer and Steve Campbell, my plus two on this trip, would have cleaner angles for throwing the harpoons when the time would come.

Every swordfish fight, I’m told, is different, and my fish decided to ramp up efforts almost immediately after the weight was removed and I was hand cranking. It went on a big run and then a series of smaller runs, and since I was in standup, I could feel power with every movement the fish made.

Rick helped manage my excitement by keeping me focused with practical advice, “Give one crank at a time if you can, pumping it like you would a tuna. Lift the rod, and get a handle crank. Lift the rod, and get another handle crank. You’re inching rather than going for big gains. You’re just kinda ‘walking the dog’ right to you. You don’t want the fish to know it’s coming to the boat.”

Steve took a position in the bow with his harpoon, and Adam was ready in the stern with his. Like most people, neither of them had ever harpooned anything, but to give clients more confidence, Rick has all of his swordfish trips take practice throws at the start of the day before the first bait is deployed. We had all took turns that morning, so now, in the impending moment of truth, everyone was prepared.

“If you see the fish, take a shot,” Rick instructed Steve and Adam as I slowly gained inch by inch. “Don’t wait for a better shot. I would rather miss him and take a second shot than not take a shot and have the hook pull out. With a soft mouth and a super strong body, you have to take the shot.”

We eventually saw our fish deep in the water column, too deep for the harpoons, but Rick again encouraged Steve and Adam to throw the harpoon once given any shot. Steve threw first. No purchase. Steve threw a second time. Purchase.

Rick likes at least one, if not two harpoons in the fish before he gaffs, so he had Adam make his way forward, and then Adam, too, sunk his harpoon in the fish’s side. The gaff gave Rick leverage, and my first North Carolina swordfish came over the gunnels.

Rick’s a long time friend and has exceeded expectations on just about every fishing trip I’ve even been on with him, and though he was nothing but confidence on the way out that morning, telling me that it wasn’t a matter of if we were going to catch a swordfish but when, still there was a level of relief mixed in with all of the high fives and photos, the smiles and shouts.

That positive energy stayed sky high all the way back south to the area where we were going to begin our next drift, drop down another bait, and get Adam fitted for the harness. He was up next, and again Rick was talking in terms of when and not if we get a second bite.

Our bait, after a six-minute drop, was poised a little off the bottom, and then it drifted along for approximately another six minutes before the if officially became a when.

A big part of the beauty of watching Adam and his swordfish, for me, was that I was now able to experience the swordfish process from a spectator perspective, and in doing so, I was able to both re-experience and gain new perspective on my own swordfish.

Adam’s bite, for example, was a little different. His was more of the classic swordfish bite where the fish hits the bait the first time, displayed by a subtle downward jolt, and then the sword hits the bait again about six seconds later.

For Adam, his swordfish fought harder than mine in the electric reel portion of the fight. Where my fish had created a handful of early stalls, Adam’s fish created more and longer stalls, as well as drag pulls, before transitioning to hand crank. Another difference was that my fish never jumped, but Adam’s put on a surface show, clearing the water several times.

Soon after Adam transitioned to hand crank, his fish was ready to come in. Steve harpooned first, I added a second, and then Rick once again used the gaff to guide the fish into the bottom of the boat. More high fives and photos. More smiles and shouts.

It was now 3:00 in the afternoon, and while Rick had every confidence that if given two more drops, we would have had two more swords, the reality of a near three-hour boat ride home followed by fish cleaning time would have him saying goodbye to us after 7:00 pm, and that still left him with boat cleaning and gear preparations for a full day bottom fishing trip that started early the next morning.

Rick manned the wheel, and Steve, Adam, and I shut down in three bean bags behind the leaning post as we headed in after our second sword.

Targeting a specific species in 1600’ of water, as you can imagine, demands a high level of attention to every detail, and Capt. Rick Croson, of Living Waters Guide Service, has given and continues to give those details that high level of attention. If you’re interested in learning and experiencing firsthand this daytime, hook-and-line fishery, then check him out at www.livingwatersoutdoor.com.

You’ll most likely meet him at his slip behind Fish House Restaurant, probably around 5:30 am, and hop on his 365 Tideline catamaran with four 300 hp Suzukis and watch the sun come up on a comfortable ride out. Not far from his swordfish grounds, you’ll pass through an area where Rick typically catches tuna, and if you see active birds and fish, he will have some spare rods on board to target that fishery on the way out, if you wish.

Once past the edge of the Continental Shelf and fully in the Gulf Stream, you might drop a bonita strip or you might drop a spanish mackerel belly, but I suggest you practice throwing harpoons when given the opportunity and get fitted in the harness early, because when Rick Croson says you’re going swordfishing, he likes, and I mean he really likes, your chances.