Fishing has always been kind of a rush for me – especially something big pulling on the other end of the line. I’d like to share my experience catching my first mahi-mahi with you. I thank my husband, Roy, for giving me this memory.
I have kept a fish identification book with the kinds of fish I’ve caught with Roy when we began to fish. We’ve fished fresh saltwater (a lot of inshore, a little offshore). My favorite way to fix fish is amandine. I learned how to cook amandine after my first bite of mahi-mahi (dorado) amandine in Hawaii. It was heaven in my mouth. Before then, the only way I cooked fish was fry it in cornmeal. But amandine – that’s a whole different animal.
I never forgot the dorado. When Hawaii was ruled by royalty, it was against the law for normal folks to eat mahi-mahi and if you were caught eating it, you would be killed. Eating this fish is almost worth the risk! Anyway, I always wanted to catch one and Roy had tried numerous times to accommodate me. But the dorado eluded me – until that trip.
Roy and I had become good friends with “Mooch” (Pat Webb) and the “Goddess” (Connie Webb). Mooch used to run offshore charters. He found out that I REALLY wanted to catch a dorado. One Sunday afternoon he called with a weather report and an offer to go offshore in quest of the silver bullet (king mackerel) and possibly – dorado. Heck yeah, we were going offshore!
Have you ever been so excited that you couldn’t sleep – anticipation creeping into your night and filling your every thought? It was a long night before that dawn fishing trip. I was up before the alarm clock. As promised, Mooch, his friend, Alan Ham, and the WEBCO (his offshore boat) appeared at our dock. Roy and I jumped in, Mooch eased the throttle down, and off we went on our great Gulf adventure!
Mooch navigated down the San Bernard and hung a left at the Intracoastal Canal. Barge traffic in the canal was like Loop 610 in 5 o’clock traffic on the way to the west flood gates at the Brazos. An acquaintance, Nelson, was on the gates. There was some banter back and forth ending with we had a nice day for the fishing trip. It was a “guy” kind of thing until Nelson saw me in the back of the boat and asked if I were going. Well, duh, yeah. Then he made a big production of how he thought my day would turn out as he pretended to “chum” the waters. We motored on down the Intracoastal and made a stop at Bridge Bait and Tackle for cigar minnows, then out through the jetties we went.
In no time, Mooch found blue water. Alan put four rods out and trolling for treasure of the deep began. Roy and I appreciated Mooch’s and Alan’s talent – they could stand up and do things while the boat rocked in the chop. Neither Roy nor I ever found our sea legs and fished sitting down – believe me, it was safer for Mooch and Alan that way!
Two rods were out. Alan was bringing one back in for a bait check when the water directly below his hand exploded, line started disappearing, and the drag started screaming. He handed me the rod and the fight was on. It was war between me and that fish. He’d strip line and I’d reel him in. He’d see the boat and the process started all over again. Roy told me to start reeling in and I think I said something like, yeah me and which army? The guys were great. They “let” me get this one by myself – except Roy did hang on to the rod. I don’t quite know if he was helping me or just didn’t want to replace Mooch’s equipment. Just before my arms fell off, Alan and Roy put that Jack Crevalle on deck. He’d go 30-35 pounds.
While I was pasting my arms back on, Roy, Alan and Mooch each took turns catching king mackerel. I’d never seen a king mackerel before and Mooch said they were “babies.” All of them we caught were legal – bigger than 27 inches – and I thought they were big – very big – and scary-looking.
We took turns catching fish as we trolled the depths. Alan and Mooch each took turns at the helm – so we all caught fish. Early on, Alan put out a funny winged looking top water bait called a “bird” – that was Mooch’s secret weapon for the elusive dorado. Though we trolled the floating seaweed patches that Dorado are known to hang out around, we saw nothing around them except … seaweed. As Alan was trolling and Mooch was recounting a fish story, the “bird” appeared to catch another piece of seaweed. So, before removing the seaweed, Mooch finished his story. Then he picked up the rod and started reeling in. The next thing I knew, the rod was in my hand. Not much of a fight later, my mahi was magically on the deck. All blue and yellow – like God’s hand painted porcelain masterpiece. Now I understood why only Hawaiian royalty could eat these fish.
We lacked two king mackerel having a limit for all of us. Mooch caught a bonito and I caught my first king mackerel. The afternoon got hot, and we returned to shore to clean our catch. I was still thinking about that dorado. I owe a lot to the guys. I got to do what most folks never get a chance to – catch their first “treasure.” I marked catching a dorado off my bucket list. Too bad she wasn’t big enough for all of us to have an amandine dinner – she sure was good, fellas.
Oh, and I learned a couple of other things on this fishing trip. First, when you see someone is landing a big offshore fish and they have the fish “billy” poised for action – for safety, mind you – don’t get your knee between the fish’s head and the “billy.” I can testify that your knee will know it’s beat in that action. And second, just so you’ll know, I did NOT provide the “chum” for this trip.
Until next time, here’s wishing you a mahi-mahi amandine, a stretched fishing line, and a good story.
