Bimini's Giant Bluefin

As a boy, I thought, probably correctly, that the very best heavy-tackle anglers in the world, and the captains who worked for them, all had one thing in common: They fished for giant bluefin tuna in the Bahamas in the spring. To me, in those years, the men who fished for these greatest of fish were giants who walked the Earth and sailed its seas.

As a child, I voraciously read books about Yankee whalers and frontiersmen like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. I frequently exaggerated the severity of my childhood colds and bronchitis, so I could stay home from school and read stories about Robin Hood and King Arthur and his knights in armor. I always wished that I could have been a harpooner in the South Seas, back in the days of Melville’s Moby Dick.

Fortunately, I later enjoyed the privilege of knowing and working for some of the tuna fishermen who became legendary heroes during those heady days of old. There were solid citizens and captains of commerce among the wealthy anglers and crews, and a fair share of womanizers, gamblers, alcoholics, cheats and liars as well.

I knew that I did not want to emulate some of them in many respects, but I yearned to learn how to catch the fish they caught in Bimini and Cat Cay while I sat in school. Later in the year, during summer vacation, I got to fish for sailfish and marlin — lesser fish, in my mind.

Many of these freewheeling, fish-catching characters became my mentors. Like the old man in Robert Ruark’s The Old Man and the Boy stories, which I read fervently, they shared their knowledge with me. They taught me many basic skills, including how to tie knots, twist wire, handle a boat, operate a drag and much, much more. I learned to pull modest-size fish on steel wire leaders, and gaffed giant fish with a flying gaff before I reached my teens.

Honing these skills, tactics and techniques on bluefin tuna as a mate during my college years gave me a huge advantage when, as a young captain, I began to compete at the highest levels, capturing the biggest marlin and tuna.

Those who fished for lesser species could not, and still cannot, catch truly big fish the way those trained on tuna along the edge of the Bahama Banks could — unless they learned from someone who had been there, or worked for someone who had.

Today, long chains of knowledge connect those men who developed and passed on their heavy-tackle tuna techniques to many of today’s great captains and their young, ambitious mates.

Many of today’s greats may not even be aware that the first captain they worked for represents a direct link in a chain, going all the way back to the Bahamas tuna pioneers. Many generational links separate today’s best from direct contact with bluefin tuna and the Bahamas, but the links are still there, reaching out to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Latin America and just about anywhere that anglers pursue the biggest, strongest fish that swim in the seas.

Training Ground
It was almost impossible to compete as a captain without first serving an apprenticeship on the deck of a tuna boat, fishing off Bimini or Cat Cay. There was less luck and more skill involved in this fishery than any other I’ve ever participated in.

Anyone — a dentist, say, or the owner of several midwestern convenience stores — can retire, buy a boat and some pre-rigged lures, and compete, with a decent chance of placing, in most big-money marlin tournaments — not so on Tuna Alley.

Tuna fishing in Bimini was sight-fishing — and you had to have good eyes. If your own eyes were less than superb, you hired a mate with both great vision and experience in the fishery. Some of the best captains (Walter Voss comes to mind) had average eyes, but made up for it by hiring mates with excellent vision. Most often, these mates were local Bahamian men, with surnames like Rolle, Brown, Ellis and Saunders. Highly prized for their skills, these sharp-eyed fishermen could make more money in the relatively short tuna season than they would the entire rest of the year. In the earliest years of the fishery, they climbed and clung to a mast mounted on a trunk cabin. Riding high above the flying bridge on this precarious perch allowed them to spot tuna from farther away.

Everyone wore polarized sunglasses. The “owl-eyed” or “raccoon” look was sported by all of the more fair-skinned men in the years before good sunblock came along. Skin cancer was a major occupational hazard.

The masts on boats from before World War II and just after morphed into a “tuna tower,” complete with steering wheel, throttles and gear shifters. Tuna only poured through in uncountable numbers (and popped to the surface to surf down-swell) on windy days. Captains designed the towers to hold two, or at most three men, safely and comfortably, on moderate days. Only two men could stay up top on the best, really rough days. The only time a tuna tournament was canceled on account of the weather was when it was too calm.