Added on Thursday, December 11, 2014  Gary Hurley

Guide Time – Playing the Bills

Basking in the glow of an already successful day, Fisherman’s Post Publisher Gary Hurley and I stood near the transom of the sportfisherman “Bite Me,” alternately trading bad jokes and staring intently (or so we thought) at the teasers and baits awash in the boat’s foamy blue wake.

“BIG BLUE MARLIN—LEFT TEASER!” Cat Peele shouted along with a few other words as he leapt from a perch on the boat’s bridge ladder back into the cockpit. Like a gunfighter pulling .45, the mate had grabbed an 80 lb. trolling outfit without skipping a beat and was dropping a large ballyhoo back into the spread before either Gary or I could react with anything other than slack-jawed awe—and, somehow, we hadn’t even seen the fish!

In fact, I’m fairly certain neither of us, nor Fish Post Sales Manager Joshua Alexander had seen a single billfish that day before Cat or Capt. Jay Kavanagh called out that a long-snouted visitor was darting through our spread of dredge and daisy-chain teasers and naked and skirted ballyhoo. Despite focusing keenly on the boat’s wake, our eyes were clearly no match for those of a captain and mate not simply making a living but doing what they love.

“I live for marlin fishing,” mate Cat Peele had explained that morning as the 51’ Buddy Canady custom idled out of the canal leading into Pirate’s Cove Marina. “Jay does, too—this is like our vacation. We definitely aren’t up here because we’re making more money.”

After fishing the spring and summer out of Hatteras Inlet, Jay and Cat move the boat to Pirate’s Cove to get in on the legendary billfish bite off Oregon Inlet for a month starting in mid-August.

Though the action hadn’t been as red-hot as some of the previous years (with boats racking up double-digit numbers of white marlin releases regularly), the “Bite Me” crew had been encountering sound numbers of both blue and white marlin since they’d arrived, and our trio was beyond happy to join Jay and Cat for one of their final trips from the northern port in mid-September.

We pulled into the Pirate’s Cove parking lot moments before a motorcycle slid into the adjoining space—our captain atop it after a 60-mile trek from his home in Frisco. Jay quickly traded his bike helmet for a captains’ bag and had the boat’s big single diesel warming up as he and Cat welcomed the Fisherman’s Post team aboard.

The lights of first the Melvin Daniels Bridge and then the Bonner Bridge disappeared in the “Bite Me” wake, but lights from several other vessels taking a northerly tack out of the inlet kept us company for a ride out to a spot where the fleet had located some hungry billfish in previous days. The sun had just begun to burn off some persistent morning cloud cover as the captain eased the boat off plane and he and Cat began a swift process of deploying our baits and teasers.

With baits rigged, lines already clipped into outriggers, and rods in their assigned holders, all the pair had to do was flip our ballyhoo overboard and get them in position behind the boat. Within a minute of the diesel winding down, we had a full six-line spread of baits paddling seductively behind daisy-chain and dredge teasers also running off the outriggers.

In our last mile of running, the “Bite Me” steamed past a dozen or so other sportfishermen also getting their trolling days started, and we now joined a few boats on the offshore edge of the pack in the hunt for a billfish.

“The fish have been feeding on tinker mackerel,” Cat had explained while deploying our left teaser, a squid daisy chain followed by a larger bait than the skirted ballyhoo on the other chain, “so I’ve been rigging spanish mackerel on the teaser.”

With both working behind the big boat’s transom, it was easy to spot the difference. The spanish, rigged behind a chugger head, convincingly burst from the surface like a small tuna chasing the squids. Trailing a bullet head lure, the ballyhoo on the right teaser remained in the water and paddled away, offering the billfish a chance to show us which was most appealing.

Beneath the daisy chains and a bit closer to the cockpit corners a pair of multi-tiered mullet dredges offered the illusion of bait balls seeking cover and protection beneath the hull.

Another recent observation had informed the construction of these attractions as well.

“All the flying fish I’ve seen up here seem like they have black backs,” Cat explained while scanning the water after baits and teasers went in. “After the first day I saw those, I put all black skirts on a dredge.”

The mate wasn’t given a chance to say much more before the captain’s voice came ringing from on high.

“There he is…White marlin on the left teaser!” Cat had seen the fish before I’d processed the words, and as I turned I saw a bright flash and a bill wagging back and forth above the surface behind our spanish mackerel.

Popping the nearby flatline bait out of the transom clip, the mate managed to divert the spunky billfish’s attentions from the daisy chain to a naked ballyhoo sporting a light-wire circle hook.

With another colorful dart, the marlin zoomed in, snatched the bait, and spun back into the wake; the reel’s spool accelerating in Cat’s hand as the boat and fish drew apart. Waiting until he was certain the fish had turned from the boat, the mate eased the drag lever forward and lifted the rod to a slow bend.

Joshua, standing at his side, took the rod as the marlin greeted the increased tension with a series of leaps away from the rumbling diesel and flashy teasers that originally caught its senses.

Settling down from its frustrated tail dance, the billfish began peeling line from the reel with growing speed.

Jay’s excited call came down from the bridge yet again, and I looked up to notice he was holding his own bent rod. Unseen by those of us in the cockpit, another white marlin had ambushed one of our long outrigger baits and was beginning its own walk-on-water in protest after the captain bumped up the drag.

Gary took the second rod, and with a double marlin hookup within half an hour of deploying our baits, the Oregon Inlet white marlin action was looking pretty fair to me.

Unfortunately, Gary’s fish managed to shake the circle hook in its jaw after it stopped going aerial, so our concentration refocused on Joshua, whose white had pulled quite a bit of line off the reel by this point. With our other lines cleared and the teasers dangling forward of the cockpit from the outriggers, it was time to use the motor to close a bit of the gap between boat and billfish.

“Josh, get ready!” Jay called down from the bridge before aiming the boat’s transom at the fish and throwing the big diesel in reverse.

Though it had been a bit bouncy at the outset, the ocean had calmed considerably by this point in the morning. Despite the relaxed sea, the salesman still got a hearty saltwater baptism as Jay backed the “Bite Me” into the waves and spray blew back into the cockpit. With this his first white marlin hookup, Joshua didn’t seem to mind the mist a bit as he turned the reel handle furiously to regain the line the marlin had torn off.

The power assist closed the distance to the fish rapidly but, apparently not keen on the 51’ of fiberglass and diesel noise headed its way, it dove, peeling off a bit more line and locking the battle in a brief standstill.

Coached by Cat, the angler kept the rod bent and pressure on until the fish relented, allowing him to gain more line and bringing the junction between the hi-vis mono mainline and the clear 60 lb. fluorocarbon leader to the surface. Another handle turn and a quick lift of the rodtip put the leader in Cat’s outstretched hand and our first marlin release of the day on the books.

The “Bite Me” didn’t have to wait long for more action, as another bill popped up behind our splashy spanish mackerel a short time later, but this fish was less fired up than the first two and exited the spread before we could convince it to pounce on our hooked baits.

“Max, drop that other flatline back,” Cat urged as he did the same with the bait that had been closer to the fish, sending it back into and behind the spread in the hopes of reinvigorating its desire. “I don’t like to drop them back as long as a lot of people do because I’d rather bring the fish back into the spread where there are other baits in case this one’s messed up. And when you bring it in, don’t do it so fast the bait’s skipping back. It’s better if it’s still in the water and looking somewhat natural.”

We failed to entice that fish back into the spread but more excitement was on the way.

Keeping touch with the other boats in the fleet via vhf radio, Jay gave us an occasional update on how the rest of the trollers were faring.

“It’s a little slow overall,” he explained after ending another brief conversation with a fellow captain, “but it seems like boats are seeing at least as many blues as whites today.”

We’d trolled on for another hour or so without any activity before Jay’s most recent update proved prophetic.

Shouts erupting from both Cat and Jay interrupted the lull as the mate raced back to the cockpit’s left corner. “It’s a blue!” Jay hollered at the same time we saw a big splash knife from inside the spread toward the bait and teasers on the mate’s side.

The fish had engulfed one of the baits the crew intended for white marlin, another small ballyhoo on a light-wire circle hook and 60 lb. leader—gear a bit on the delicate side for the whites’ larger cousins.

“Get a belt on, Gary!” Cat shouted as the fish accelerated away from the spread.

The angler did as told and locked the rod into the fighting belt’s gimbal as the marlin raced away from the spread. Cranking in one of the baits still out, I missed the marlin’s dramatic jumps as it first felt the sting of the hook, but exuberant shouts from the others aboard left no doubt as to what was happening.

When my head snapped around, spray flew across the surface in a vicious arc, the fish greyhounding away from the boat and ripping line from the reel at a frightening pace.

With limited assistance from Joshua and I, Cat got the spread clear and cockpit squared away and gave the go-ahead for Jay to begin chasing the angry marlin in reverse.

Diesel rumbling, water flying, and fish still taking line, the chase began. Gary was able to gain a few handle turns now and again, particularly when the fish took jumps toward the big boat, but the marlin made sure he knew he was under-gunned through the first few minutes of the battle.

Its explosive aerial display early on seemed to take a bit of wind out of the fish, however, and the Publisher was soon making progress as the diameter of the chartreuse spool of line on the reel began increasing.

Unlike Josh’s white, Gary’s blue stayed up top, and as Jay maneuvered towards it, I got my first good look at the fish in the water, a purple/black shadow far more massive than the glimpse I thought I’d caught of it during the strike.

“That’s a 300-pounder, Cat,” Jay said as we neared the marlin. “Maybe bigger.”

We continued closing on the fish, but after the captain spoke the marlin seemed to decide it was time for a real show. What followed is easily the most exciting scene I’ve ever witnessed on the water.

Now swimming 20-25 yards off the transom’s right corner, the fish accelerated and began another fearsome line of greyhound leaps, continuing to rocket from the surface as it angled a bit towards the boat’s flared bow. Somehow without interrupting the aerial performance, it made a U-turn so tight it seemed beyond physics and aimed directly back at the “Bite Me.”

Each leap now took the fish on a broadside collision course with the boat and, convinced it was coming aboard, I ducked behind the fighting chair in the cockpit in the hopes of avoiding becoming a target for the flying missile.

Splashing down inside the outrigger’s reach when another leap would have certainly put it bouncing off the hull or into the cockpit, the marlin dove under the boat.

While I was thinking perhaps I’d watched too many “marlin jumps in boat” videos online and had been a bit paranoid, I noticed Cat coming out from behind the bridge wing where he, too, had been planning on taking shelter if need be and realized it had indeed been a fairly close call.

Throughout the drama Gary stayed in the corner and kept reeling, maintaining tension on the line and keeping the marlin firmly hooked. It quickly surfaced again not far behind the “Bite Me,” the clear leader material tantalizingly visible above the water.

With some deft maneuvering by Jay at the helm and Cat in the cockpit, the knot between line and leader grew closer, closer, and finally met the mate’s hand, giving our crew the official release. Taking a wrap on the fluorocarbon, Cat goaded the fish into another half-hearted leap before a violent headshake parted the leader and set the fish free.

A tale of a 300 lb. marlin in under 30 minutes on 25 lb. line would be tough for me to believe if I hadn’t seen it myself, but Cat, Jay and Gary had worked together to make it happen.

Another white marlin was our next customer, and again rose from the depths to inspect Cat’s spanish mackerel teaser. Again, both captain and mate put eyes on the fish and were well into their billfish-in-spread routine before I saw its neon stripes zipping toward the hookless bait.

The mate wasted no time in feeding it the adjacent dink ballyhoo, and the author’s number was finally up. Cat passed the rod to me as the fish aped Josh’s marlin, giving us a splashing show as it leapt away from the wake.

After perhaps a half-dozen of the jumps, however, it apparently sought comfort in the depths. Still peeling line off the reel, I watched as the angle of the bright green line steepened into the depths. The angle only grew sharper as Jay backed down on the fish after we’d cleared the spread.

Without expending much energy on the surface, the fish still had plenty of juice, and though I gained a little line as the lateral distance shrank, the fight soon reached a stalemate.

Just off the boat and well down in the blue water, the fish had to do little other than maintain its angle to prevent me from putting line back on the reel. Despite repeated attempts to lift it with the rod and change the angle we were pulling on it, I went a full 10 minutes without any appreciable gains.

“I think he might need to bump the drag up a little,” Jay said to Cat as the impasse wore on.

Giving the line a quick pull in front of the reel to gauge the pressure, the mate bumped the drag lever up a hair, allowing me to pull on it a bit harder before the spool gave up some line.

Apparently aggravated with the increased pressure, the fish peeled off several more yards of line, but the technique eventually played to my advantage.

Lifting slowly with the rod until the drag just gave, I could move the marlin a bit at a time and put some line back on the reel. Eventually the leader knot appeared faintly below the boat, and steadily worked closer and closer until Cat finally took it in hand.

His grip on the leader seemed to remind the marlin of its acrobatic ways, and the fish gave us a beautiful look at its striped silver flanks and dark back as it leapt twice more and broke the leader.

Another billfish spotted, another billfish released for the “Bite Me” crew, and another flag to hang on the outriggers upon return to Pirate’s Cove. And I only fought it slightly longer than Gary had his blue (40 lbs. versus 300+ lbs.)!

Gary, who’d realized after coming down from his blue marlin high that he’d never caught a white marlin, was next up, and it didn’t take long for Jay to spot yet another white marlin zooming in towards our left teaser.

After swiping at the mackerel, it apparently decided a ballyhoo would make a fine afternoon snack and pounced on another of our dink baits.

Again sliding on a fighting belt, Gary held on for another fantastic surface display, the marlin scooting along the wave tops on its side before taking some more conventional leaps.

Like our first fish, this one stayed on the surface, and after its initial show settled down. Jay began backing, Gary began reeling, and Cat was soon leaning out for the junction between line and leader.

With several hours left to troll and a billfish release for every man aboard, we’d already had an exceptional day by Fisherman’s Post standards and seemed to be doing as well or better than any boat in the fleet via Jay’s radio contacts.

After several conversations about how good Jay and Cat were at seeing the fish, Gary and I were both focused on the wake hoping to become better billfish spotters as we continued trolling.

And apparently we still need a clinic in putting eyes on the fish, because it was only a brief time later that Cat’s explosive cry of a big blue in the spread came down from the bridge and the mate again turned into a blur of activity.

“Max, grab that 50…Gary, pull that 80 out of the outrigger and drop them back!” Cat exhorted as he dropped back another large skirted ballyhoo and excitedly explained what he’d seen. “That fish was huge! He came across at the mackerel with his head and shoulders out.”

Adrenalized anew, we sent back the baits and brought them back into the spread slowly per his earlier explanation.

“There’s nothing more exciting in the world than a blue marlin to me,” Cat said a few moments into the drop-back routine, his voice still registering the thrill. “No matter how many of them I see. That was a big, big fish, too.” I had to agree, as my heart and mind were both still racing even after we’d lost hope that the fish was still around.

Jay made several circles back over the spot where we’d had the encounter, but we never saw the beast again, and I can say unequivocally that that fish is the most exciting thing I haven’t seen on the water.

With time drawing short and a solid run to Oregon Inlet ahead of us, we hauled in the spread after a quartet of false albacore marauded our dink baits half an hour later. With three white marlin and a blue released over the day, we were among the top boats in the fleet, an excellent note to end the “Bite Me” crew’s Oregon Inlet 2014 season on as they were running back to Hatteras for some upcoming charters the following day.

Blue and white marlin and sailfish are on the menu when Jay and Cat are fishing out of Hatteras, too, along with dolphin, wahoo, yellowfin tuna, blackfin tuna, and more. Whether at Oregon Inlet in August/September or Hatteras the rest of the year, a trip on the “Bite Me” is a learning experience and a guaranteed good time. Call Capt. Jay Kavanagh to talk about a trip at (252) 996-0295 or check out www.fishbiteme.com to learn more.