Beach Wedding(74)

by Michael Ledwidge


1


When the sun started to go down, Gannon was out alone on his boat in the Atlantic thirty miles northwest of Little Abaco.

His boat was called the Donegal Rambler, and it was a forty-foot Delta diving boat with covered seating at the back and tank racks that could hold twenty cylinders. But he’d removed most of the tanks when he’d headed out that morning, and in their place he had seven sea rods set up on outrigger mounts.

Up in the slowly chugging boat’s open flying bridge, Gannon stood with his back to the wheel, carefully watching where the rods’ green-tinged monofilament lines trailed back into the boat’s bubbling wake like the strings of a submerged puppet.

The lines were baited with mackerel and squid and jig lures, and he was trolling them along at a steady nine knots to make them appear to be a swimming school of juicy fish.

Or at least that was the game plan, anyway.

Gannon folded his big forearms as the Rambler’s two inboards purred steadily under his Converse low tops.

He’d been out since early morning, stalking the deep Atlantic falloff, and so far hadn’t gotten even a bounce on any of the rods.

A dwindling plastic sleeve of sunflower seeds sat in a drink holder at his left elbow, and he lifted it out and shook a few into his mouth. He was half-turned, spitting the shells into a waste bucket he kept beside the captain’s seat, when he saw that the falling sun was about to depart behind a bank of dark clouds.

Gannon squinted down at the Simrad depth finder.

The best shot for a sword to hit was at the tide changes, especially high to low like it was now.

He looked back up at the sky and frowned.

Time and light were running out on him.

He was pondering this and just about to spit another shell into the bucket in frustration when the closest of the starboard rods whipped down and bounced back, and the air suddenly filled with the sweet zipping sound of eighty-pound test paying out.

Sunflower seeds went flying as Gannon slipped the boat into Neutral and flashed down the ladder without touching the rungs. As he grabbed the big, frantically unreeling rod up out of the mount, he smiled at the heavy tug on it. Swords usually liked to nibble first, but this one apparently had just gone for it.

He gripped hard on the rod and began reeling, rapidly taking up slack, racing the now-quickly-ascending fish to make sure it didn’t get a chance to unhook.

The fish jumped for the first time thirty feet from the boat twenty minutes later. It was a gigantic white marlin, long and shining, with a dark blue bill and a beautiful Mohawk-like blue comb.

Even for an experienced fisherman, it was no small feat to hook a billfish during the day, and Gannon watched in boyish wide-eyed awe as it arced through the gold-tinged air, its body and tail trembling like a sprung diving board.

Then the hundred-pound-plus sport fish slapped back down into a swell with a loud explosion of water, and Gannon got giddily spinning again, sweat pouring off his face, the big rod bowing almost in half as he cranked and yanked.

He was tight on the fish and had it about twenty feet away and closing when it got stupid with panic and ran under the plunging bow. Gannon, pretty hyped up on adrenaline himself, immediately ran forward with the rod so the line wouldn’t get tangled.

“Dammit!” he yelled as the bow of the boat bobbed up, and he felt the line immediately snag on something. A split second later, there was a loud crack, and all Gannon could do was watch as his snapped-free UHF radio antenna hit off the bow rail before it disappeared into the water.

Before he could even begin to deal with that, the fish spurted again and came back around to starboard and resurfaced ten feet from the boat. Gannon blinked sweat out of his stinging eyes and then whistled as he got a good look at it. He’d caught bigger sailfish before, but this was no contest the biggest white marlin he had ever hooked.

He was piecing together how to bring the monster around to the boat’s port-side diving door when it suddenly twisted and went back under. That was when Gannon dropped the rod altogether. The reel clattered against the deck as he grabbed up the thick monofilament line with his gloved hands and began tugging the huge fish in hand over hand.

He had it just off the hull, holding the banjo-tight line firmly with his left hand, and was kneeling down on the deck lifting the gaff with his right when he felt it give one more mighty thrashing spasm.

“No!” Gannon screamed out as the frenzying line gave a funny jerk and the weight suddenly and completely disappeared on him.

He groaned as he stood and lunged over the gunwale with the gaff. But the huge fish was already gone. Gannon watched brokenhearted as its immense beautiful tail, already ten feet deep and counting, waved bye-bye down in the clear water as it dived.

Spit the hook a foot away! Gannon thought in agony as he slammed the gaff down loudly against the deck.

He glanced forward at the jagged, now-useless piece of metal clamped to the bow rail that used to be his radio antenna.

After busting up his boat!

He lifted the sea rod and reeled in nothing and shook his head in furious disgust as he stared at the empty hooks.

“Fish one. Gannon less than zippo,” he said and after a moment began laughing as he looked for a towel.

He’d been a fisherman all his life, and it was either that or weep, he knew.

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