InTheBite

Bahamas: No Chinese Fisheries Deal

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Prime Minister Perry Christie provided the sportfishing world (and anyone else who cares about the Caribbean) with some reassurance. Rumors of a 10 year, $2.1 billion deal to grant the Chinese government fisheries and agricultural rights to territorial waters and land in the Bahamas scared many. From marine conservation organizations to travelling sportfishermen, the proposed deal caused a public outcry. In a statement, the Prime Minister assured the world that there will be no such deal and that it would not have been considered by the government.

Here is the official statement:

“The government of the Bahamas did not agree to any such proposition,” Christie said, “did not consider any such proposition, it did not come before the government as a proposal, and it would not have reached the government because it would have been rejected outright. We do not do that in the Bahamas, and I keep on saying you cannot have a debate where you miss the fact that it did not happen. Therefore, you are attributing to the government in debate what could have happened if the government had agreed, and you’re planting in people’s mind and this is more than disingenuous, it is a commitment they have made to trying to exploit an issue that is a non-issue.”

This is good news to all involved. InTheBite joins the chorus of those thanking Prime Minister Perry Christie for his perspective in the matter. Let us all hope that this is the last word in the matter…

Paul Spencer of Spencer Yachts “In His Own Words”

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In Their Own Words is an InTheBite exclusive. This is the first installment. The series provides first person access to the men behind the boats.

Paul Spencer describes his approach to making boats and the evolution of Spencer Yachts from the beginning– a charter captain making a boat for himself– into what it has become today, one of the finest operations in sportfishing. As Spencer Yachts celebrates its 100th hull, Paul describes the company’s philosophy to the art and business of boat building.

Tales from the Smelly Bilge– Hooker Smashes Blue Marlin World Record

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Mystery Woman—Hooker—Shatters Blue Marlin World Record
Elliott Stark

The International Record Fish Association confirmed today that the all-tackle world record for Atlantic Blue Marlin has been shattered. The record-breaking fish weighed in at 1,837 pounds. It was caught under mysterious circumstances. While the catch itself satisfies all International Record Fish Association’s angling requirements, it is the story behind how the fish was caught that is most interesting. While the angler’s full name has not been released (apparently for reasons of privacy and national security), she answers to the name Cherry Sapphire.

This is the complete account of the story, told exclusively to Tales from the Smelly Bilge, by the record-setting captain. His statement was given on the condition of anonymity. Certain details as to the location of the catch and the individuals involved have not yet been shared publicly.

How it Happened:

“We picked up the charter at 7:30. There were two of them. The man was older and distinguished-looking. He was dressed pretty strangely for a day of fishing. He was clean shaven and professional. He carried an expensive-looking leather briefcase that was made in Italy. He was dressed in leather loafers and wearing grey pinstriped pants and a white Oxford dress shirt with French cuffs,” he said describing the man. “The two of them got out of a van with blacked out windows. There were Secret Service-looking guys escorting them. They were speaking into microphones in their collars, looking around all over the place. Real professional, bad ass-looking guys.”

The captain continued, “The girl he was with was really, really attractive. The way she was dressed wasn’t normal for fishing either. She had a one-piece miniskirt that was leopard print. She was spilling out of the skirt in every direction– and not in a bad way if you know what I mean.  She was wearing shiny lip gloss that smelled really strongly like strawberries. She carried a small purse, but there was something hanging out of it. It looked like a whip,” he described with a grin on his face. “The heels she had were really tall and really sharp. Thinking back on it, we probably should have asked her to take them off before she got on the boat. I guess my mate and I were distracted. Neither one of us looked at her shoes.”

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Ms. Cherry Sapphire’s shoes the day she set the all tackle blue marlin world record.

“As soon as they got on the boat, they disappeared into the salon. I am not 100% sure what was going on in there, but I have a pretty good idea,” he says. “We were fishing right out front, so the run was only 15 minutes. We put the lures out on the 130s. When he booked the trip, the guy said he wanted blue marlin and didn’t care about anything else.”

“About 10:30 the salon door opened. The windows were fogged up. Ms. Cherry came out, alone. Her hair was ruffled, the leopard print skirt was shifted sideways a bit. She said that Mr. X would need a little time to rest after what just happened. We didn’t ask any questions…” said the Captain.

Cherry Sapphire then told the crew that she’d like to work on her tan. She thought that the fighting chair looked like the perfect spot to sit. She plopped down in the chair and seductively turned her attention to the mate, saying, “Hey there handsome. Why don’t you grab your pole and come over here,” she said pointing the 130 that was deployed out of the left long rigger. She then said, and I am not making this up—the captain said, “I love a guy with a big rod.”

“My mate didn’t really know what to do. He kinda blushed, but did what she said. He took the rod and put it into the gimble of the fighting chair. Ms. Cherry looked at him and said, ‘Go on, strap me in’,” the captain described the unfolding scene below. “So he reached down and connected the straps of the bucket harness to the eyes of the reel,” the captain continued.

“She then whispered something into his ear. I am not sure what she said, but he all of a sudden dropped his sunglasses and his face was taken over by a wide, goofy smile,” the captain said. “To me it looked like we had an unfolding love connection on the cockpit. I didn’t like it, I just kept thinking about the James Bond-type, secret service-looking guys waiting for us at the dock.”

“Just then, all hell broke loose. Neither of us were paying much attention to the spread so we were shocked when Cherry was jolted damn near out of the chair by the force of the reel. Luckily the mate hadn’t engaged it all the way to full after moving it from the gunnel. If he had pushed it to 24, we would have lost her. Instead the drag was at 8 pounds,” he describes. “The mate grabbed her by the shoulders, keeping her in the chair. She dug her heels into the footrest. Those shoes made a hell of a sound on the teak…”

“As soon as the mate saved Ms. Cherry, we looked back to see the commotion. It was a hell of a fish, the biggest either of us had ever seen. The thing was a tank. The fish was pinged right through the base of the bill by the 12/0. The chugger head on the purple skirt… always my favorite!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think that there was any way that we were going to catch this fish…”

The scene as the giant marlin greyhounded away from the boat.

The scene as the giant marlin greyhounded away from the boat.

“The big bastard was running like a cut snake. It went on a hellacious greyhounding spree. Jumping in and out, throwing whitewater like Niagara Falls. It just kept jumping and jumping, it was quartering away from the boat out to the left. That’s when it happened…” the captain recalls.

“On its last jump, it came completely out of the water. It arced its massive body 10 feet in the air. There must have been 30 feet from where it jumped to where it crashed back into water. The thing had its mouth wide open, trying to sling the hook. Just as it crashed back into the water, it landed on a pelican!” he said.

“In all my years, I had never seen a damned pelican offshore, the thing must have been lost. We couldn’t see it at the time, but the marlin actually swallowed the bird. It didn’t eat the thing on purpose, it just jumped on top of it with its mouth open, the way a kingfish will jump on a school of herring,” he said.  “The pelican had been just sitting there, minding its own business. Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time!”

The hapless pelican, before being consumed by the beast.

The hapless pelican, before being consumed by the beast.

“As soon as it ate the bird, the marlin then stopped grey hounding. It stopped pulling drag altogether. Instead, it just started just jumping straight up out of the water, over and over again. It was slinging its head back and forth. Each time it did, feathers flew out. It was the most damnable thing I ever saw!”

“We found out later that the pelican’s beak lodged itself in the left side of the fish’s gills. A wing and a foot were sticking out the right side. The bird choked the marlin, it actually killed the fish before we knew what had happened.”

“When we saw the fish had stopped moving, I threw the boat into forward. There was a big belly in the line, but the fish was still hooked. It was just kind of twitching on the surface, stunned and 80% dead. When we got up close to the fish, we saw the pelican hanging out of both sides of its gills. The pelican’s ass end was in sticking out of the fish’s mouth, right next to the hook.”

“My mate grabbed a gaff and stuck the dead fish to keep it from sinking out. I flew down from the bridge and sank a flyer in it and cleated it off. It was the biggest damned marlin any of us had ever seen and it was caught by Ms. Cherry with the help of a pelican.”

“At that point, once we were sure the fish was dead and secure, I looked up at our angler. She didn’t seem to know what had happened. I looked down at the fighting chair where her heels had been and it looked like it had been shot with a 12 gauge. Wherever her heels touched the teak, there looked like a woodpecker had attacked. It was a nightmare. It looked like an alligator had gotten loose.”

This is what happens to fighting chairs when they meet high heels.

This is what happens to fighting chairs when they meet high heels.

“We then needed some help trying to get the fish into the boat so we could go home. The mate went inside to look for the client. He was nowhere to be found, but the place smelled like strawberries. Then in the master we found him… The poor SOB was tied to the bed frame using some pink satin strips. He was blindfolded… It was damned strange to see.”

The whip used by Ms. Sapphire. It was left on the boat and was submitted to the International Record Fish Assn. along with the record application.

The whip used by Ms. Sapphire. It was left on the boat and was submitted to the International Record Fish Assn. along with the record application.

“We untied him. He was fine, aside from a bunch of welps that looked like whip marks….” The captain describes. “He wasn’t mad until he came out to the deck to see the tanker of a marlin tied off the covering boards. Once he saw that, and realized that he missed catching the fish because he was tied up in a stateroom with pink satin strips, he started hollering. He was madder than a rattle snake.”

“He looked over a Ms. Cherry and said, ‘If you think I’m paying you for this, you have another thing coming!’ It was at that point that we realized that we had just shattered the all tackle blue marlin world record and that our angler was a hooker…”

InTheBite Magazine is the Professional’s sportfishing publication. It is based in Jupiter, Florida and aims to make readers better fishermen and boat owners. Stories featured in Tales from the Smelly Bilge may or may not have actually happened. You be the judge– either way, Tales from the Smelly Bilge are meant to be entertainment. Subscribe today.

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Captain of the Year Hawaii: Kerwin Matsunaga

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Captain Kerwin Masunaga, middle, his son Brent (left) and angler/vessel co-owner Steve Spina, are featured with Masunaga’s good luck dog Ziggy.

By Mark Johnston

Lightning strikes twice, as Captain Kerwin Masunaga wins InTheBite’s Captain of Year [Read more…]

Weekly Blog: October 10

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From Key West to Martha's Vineyard, all eyes were on Hurricane Matthew.

From Key West to Martha’s Vineyard, all eyes were on Hurricane Matthew.

Through much of the Caribbean and southeastern United States, Hurricane Matthew leaves a trail of destruction. The death toll in Haiti now tops 1,000. Some three days after the storm, some 1.4 million people in the southeastern United States are without power. In the United States, 19 deaths are attributed to the storm. Storm surge-induced flooding was reported from St. Augustine and Jacksonville in the south to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and into Virginia. Rescue efforts are underway throughout the Caribbean– notably the Bahamas and Haiti– and in the southeastern and mid Atlantic United States.

Destruction in Haiti

Destruction in the southwestern region of Haiti.

The aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti

Hurricane Matthew in perspective. Haiti bears the brunt of a direct hit from a category 4 storm. Many other regions were far more fortunate.

The hurricane was not only extremely powerful, but something of a rarity. The landfall of a category four storm is thankfully an infrequent occurrence. The storm’s path traversed sportfishing’s main street. The storm devastated parts of the Bahamas. Preliminary estimates of the storm’s damages in the United States alone are in the neighborhood of $6 billion.

Another notable fact about Hurricane Matthew was its disruptiveness. In addition to the numbers of people and communities who were actually hit by the storm, its trajectory—from south to north along the coastline of the southeastern United States– left many more in danger. Homes and businesses throughout the region closed and shuttered up. Mandatory evacuations were placed from as far south as Fort Lauderdale to as far north as the Carolinas. Here is a forecast from when the storm passed Haiti.

CNN Forecast

 

Some places were fortunate. Marinas, boatyards, and homes in South Florida went to extreme measures to button up before the storm. The Hurricane passed offshore of much of south and central Florida, producing wind and rain but not the destruction and impact that may have occurred if its trajectory were to have shifted west.

Groceries and necessities were in short supply as the east coast made ready for the storm.

Groceries and necessities were in short supply as the east coast made ready for the storm.

One captain, who runs a Spencer that fishes Florida, the Bahamas, and the DR, provides as perfect example of what many experienced. His boss’ house is in the Bahamas, his home is in South Florida and the boat is in the Dominican Republic. Before the storm, the captain flew to each location, shoring up, tying down and making ready for a potentially catastrophic impact in each place. After a circus of logistics, he was fortunate. The storm somehow crossed to the north between each of these locations, leaving him in good shape.

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Stories of close calls and inconvenience are part of what comes with living in hurricane country, especially if you make your living on the ocean. It is, after all, far better to recount these stories than those of destruction of homes and communities. Destruction of property, still, is much preferable to loss of life.

While we think about and donate to those who are left without, most of us can be thankful. Hurricane Matthew was a big, nasty one. Its trajectory prompted calls of fire and brimstone. It brought a healthy dose of destruction to some, but for millions of others it was a close call. All in all, most of us have much to be thankful for. Those of us with power and whose homes and communities were spared the devastation and flooding witnessed by so many others should be mindful of how easily we too could have been in their situations. In such times, generosity of action and donation are warranted. Our thoughts and prayers are with those continuing to deal with Hurricane Matthew.