FISH ON!
A real fish story
“Look!”
Frank shouts. “Straight ahead, where the birds are!” Frank, our fishing boat
captain, shoves the throttle to full ahead and we race toward what boat
captains call la mancha—the stain—an area the size of a small arena where
the deep blue ocean has been churned to a white froth. “Oh man, there are some big
tuna breaking water, feeding on the surface.”
I
can’t see the tuna but I definitely see the birds circling the area and diving
into the water. And then the most amazing sight of all: spinner dolphins flying
into the air, turning a half-dozen rotations before falling back to the water.
Until this day, I’d never heard of a spinner dolphin, let alone seen one. And
yet there they are—one, two, three, and more—shooting into the air like prima
ballerinas.
We
are twenty-five miles off the west coast of Costa Rica, out of the harbor town
of Flamingo. Our party consists of my daughter Cheryl and her husband Bruce,
their sons Mason and Collin, my daughter Kim, and me. Cheryl and her family
have lived in Tamarindo for more than twenty years and are involved in several
business ventures there. Kim lives in Welches, Oregon, with her husband Cliff and
extended family. It’s my first visit to Costa Rica, a gift from my five
children in honor of my eightieth birthday, and this will be a day I’ll never
forget.
Bruce
and my grandson Collin are experienced spear fishermen. Captain Frank will try
to position the boat out in front of the dolphins and tuna. Then Bruce and
Collin will jump into the water with snorkel gear and spear guns and descend
about thirty feet below the surface. The dolphins will come racing by, followed
closely by a school of yellowfin tuna. The goal is to get a good clean shot at
a tuna, after which the speared fish will dive deep, taking with it a line attached to
a float. The fish will eventually wear itself out, the float will come to the
surface, and the catch hauled in.
We
speed along with forty, fifty, a hundred or more dolphins racing alongside the
boat. Bruce and Collin are in the bow, ready to go into the water. My grandson Mason
is busy capturing as much of the action as possible via his 35 mm camera and
his trusty smartphone. He is a skilled photographer, filmmaker and editor, like a young
Spielberg. In the meantime, Captain Frank’s deckhand has rigged two fishing
poles and cast them to troll behind the boat. Finally, Frank cuts the engine
and Bruce and Collin are in the water, dropping below the surface, hoping for a
clear shot as the tuna race by.
“Fish
on!” Frank shouts. The rod nearest me bends at a ninety-degree angle and the
reel sings as the line races out. “Grab that rod, Chuck. Let it run if it’s
taking line, otherwise crank hard, reel it in.”
I
go to the rod and begin reeling. The fish makes a couple of runs and I keep on
cranking. My arm is tiring and I think about giving up, handing the job to
someone else. But call it pride or call it machismo, there is no way I
can quit. I keep straining to gain line. Suddenly the fish comes into view. I’m
winning the battle. Now the deckhand moves in, a heavy glove on his left hand,
a long gaff in his right. He grabs the line with his left hand and pulls the
fish near the side of the boat. With his right, he makes a quick move with the
gaff and jerks the fish up into the boat. It flaps wildly on the deck, blood
splattering everywhere. In a matter of minutes, the deckhand has the yellowfin
safely in cold storage, surrounded by bags of ice. Our best guess is it weighs
about sixty pounds.
Bruce
and Collin swim back to the boat disappointed. The drop point must be precise to
find the tuna schooling behind the dolphins, and this time the positioning was
off. Captain Frank idles as the spearfishermen climb aboard. All the while, the
great gathering of fish and sea birds has moved on. The captain guns the engine
and off we go, his eyes alternating between his radar screen and the horizon.
It’s
time to head back to shore and we begin the long journey home. I think about
Cheryl and Bruce and the life they’ve built here in Costa Rica. Their
entrepreneurial ventures are too numerous to list here, but the current
flagship is their property management firm: Stay in Tamarindo. If you have an urge
to visit Costa Rica, maybe catch a tuna of your own, or visit a volcanic
national park, or catch a perfect wave on your surfboard, Stay in Tamarindo has
the ideal vacation rental for you.
***
Back
home, Bruce goes to work immediately to clean and filet the fish. Collin and
Mason jump in to make it a team effort. As Bruce carves off the filets, Collin
trims and cuts them into thick steaks while Mason packs and seals them in
freezer bags. Cheryl and Kim join the team, preparing rice, green salad, and other side dishes. My job is to hoist a cold beer and offer encouragement. Later that
evening, we sit down to a dinner featuring perfectly seasoned and seared tuna
steaks. It isn’t lost on me that these delicious steaks were swimming freely in
the deep blue Pacific earlier this same day.
Through
all of this teamwork, Mason has been telling us about a documentary series narrated
by Sir David Attenborough titled Our Planet. One episode, “The High Seas,”
features a segment on spinner dolphins. After dinner, we gather in front of the
TV and Mason finds the episode we’re looking for. It is a fascinating
explanation of what we witnessed at sea.
It
turns out dolphins and yellowfin tuna feed on the same tiny species called lantern
fish, a species that thrives because it has no commercial value and is,
therefore, not hunted by the fishing fleets of the world. Yellowfin tuna follow
the dolphins because dolphins are like cowboys, herding the lantern fish
together into a compact school. The Attenborough team’s brilliant underwater
photography captures this phenomenon perfectly, the dolphins working to keep
the school together, the school of lantern fish looking like a giant balloon,
swerving and swirling, held tight by the hard-working cowboys, all the while
pushing the school toward the surface. Then, as though someone fired a starter’s
pistol, the feast is on. Dolphins and tuna attack the lantern fish in a feeding
frenzy, joined by sea birds diving from the air, creating the boil on the
surface of the ocean the fishing captains call la mancha.
As
for the spinner dolphins, according to Attenborough, they are very rare, found
primarily in two locations: off the coast of Costa Rica and around the Hawaiian
Islands. I am stunned! On a planet seventy percent covered by water, I spent
the day in one of the two places on Earth that spinner dolphins call home.
When
Sir David says goodnight, so does our intrepid crew. We’ve been up since four
in the morning, a very long day indeed. Still, it takes a while for my mind to
calm down and prepare for sleep. Every time I close my eyes, one, two, three,
or more spinners go flying into the air, and Captain Frank is shouting, “Fish on!”
