Light Fantastic

To non-fishermen, Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea may be just another fish story. Not to Robert Clarke, 58, a civil engineer for whom a pleasant afternoon of trolling off Argus Bank, Bermuda, recently turned into a Hemingwayesque adventure. It was 4:45 when Skipper Russell Young of the charter boat Sea Wolfe hollered "Strike!" as a reel, loaded with 800 yds. of 30-lb.-test monofilament line, began to sing. Clarke grabbed the rod, set the hook, and gaped with astonishment as a monstrous blue marlin leaped clear of the water. "My God," breathed Young. "A 450-pounder, at least!"

It was an epic battle. Hour after hour, while day turned to night and night to day, Clarke and the great fish fought it out at opposite ends of a slender nylon thread no thicker than a pencil mark. Seven times the marlin jumped--great bill-slashing leaps that carried it 10 ft. into the air. A dozen times, while Skipper Young deftly backed and turned the boat, Clarke maneuvered the marlin to within 50 yds. of Sea Wolfe, only to have the fish launch a run that stripped 500 yds. of line off the reel in the space of seconds. The duel went on until 1 p.m., when, after 20 hr. and 15 min. in the fighting chair, Clarke felt his line go slack. The violently thrashing marlin had finally managed to chafe through the thin monofilament and escape. Clarke and Young headed for home.

Desperately disappointed? Naturally. And yet there was glory enough in the losing fight. Both angler and skipper belong to a proliferating new breed of saltwater sportsman; the light-tackle fisherman, to whom the fight is more important than the catch, and sport means giving the fish a sporting chance.

Up the Mountain. Not so long ago, most game-fish anglers favored lines testing at 80 to 130 lbs. of pressure before they would break, heavy, inch-thick rods, and big 9/0 to 12/0 reels almost powerful enough to winch in a whale. But after a fisherman had caught his first dozen sailfish, and heaved enough tuna on the deck to keep the family in sandwiches for years, what sport was there left in the game? What was left was to match the tackle to the fish--and watch his smoke. The 70-lb. white marlin that died like a guppy on the end of 130-lb. line suddenly came alive when the rig was reduced to 30 lb., flashing across the ocean in wild greyhounding leaps; the 50-lb. wahoo that expired without a peep on the end of 80-lb. test lived up to his name on 20 lb.; the 10-lb. bonefish that rolled belly up on 20 lb. became a raging demon on 6-lb. or better still, 4-lb. test, ripping off line so fast that it sounded like a sheet tearing. Says Pete Perinchief of Bermuda's top-rated Anglers Club, which hosts an annual tournament limited to 30 lb. and under: "If a guy down here says he's using anything heavier than 30, we ask him if he's turning commercial--going out for meat, ya' know."

The light-tackle aficionado may hook ten fish for every one he catches. But the one is worth it. Last August, off Conception Bay, Newfoundland, Veteran Angler Lee Wulff, 63, set a world record by landing a 597-lb. bluefin tuna on 50-lb.-test line. Wulff played that bulldog of the deep for 13 1/2 hr. before finally coaxing it to gaff. "Now I know," he sighed afterward, "what a guy feels like when he has climbed a mountain for the first time."

What's more, the mountain is there for everyone. No one but a weight lifter or a masochist can pretend to enjoy wrestling with a heavy reel that spans 6 in. across and weighs 101 lbs.--assuming they can afford the cost (up to $800 for the biggest Fin-Nor model). Yet a six-year-old youngster or a 60-year-old grandmother can play all day with a little 2 1/2/Oreel and a rod as supple as a willow wand. Last February Mrs. Evelyn M. Anderson, 60, a Glendale, Calif., housewife, boated a 353-lb. black marlin on 12-lb. line off Pinas Bay, Panama--thereby breaking a year-old record held by none other than her husband. The feat qualified her for membership in sport fishing's most prestigious organization: the Ten-to-One Club, started in 1960 by the Miami Beach Rod and Reel Club and limited to "those anglers who, unaided, set the hooks, fight and bring to gaff a fish weighing ten times the wet test of the line used."

In eight years, only 164 anglers around the world have qualified for the Ten-to-One Club. Notable among them is Florida's Stu Apte, 37, a Pan American pilot and professional fisherman on the side, who qualified with an 82-lb. Pacific sailfish on threadlike 5-lb. test. In Australia, the Sydney Game Fishing Club has just started a Fifteen-to-One Club, and President John S. Quill says: "In the past year, a dozen fishermen would have qualified."

Twang & Plane. It takes genuine skill and some luck. No serious pressure can be exerted on the line; yet the fish cannot be permitted to strip too much off the reel, or the fragile line may break just from its own weight in the water. Light-tackle anglers try to distract and turn a running fish by twanging the taut line with their fingers; if the fish persists in running, they must rev up their boat engines and give chase, trying to retrieve enough line to get the fish back under control. A heavy fish that chooses to sound deep instead of run is even tougher: the fisherman either has to wait it out or attempt to "plane" the fish to the surface, by tightening the drag on his line right to the breaking point, running the boat rapidly forward and back in hopes, generally futile, of starting the fish up.

If that seems a quixotic pastime, consider the fishermen who set out armed with nothing more substantial than fly rods basically designed for fresh-water trout. Surprisingly, they sometimes make a catch. Off Ecuador last year, Lee Wulff patiently cast to 20 striped marlin before he finally snagged a 148-lb. beauty with his $12 fly rod and $20 reel. That fight took a mere 4 1/2 hours. Stu Apte has a 151-lb. tarpon to his credit, caught on a fly rod with a 12-lb.-test leader. Bob Zwirz, 42, a fishing writer, actually used the same fly rod last year to catch a 5-lb. brook trout in Canada and a 92-lb. tarpon in Florida.

By rights, that ought to be the ultimate in light-tackle technique. Not quite. The palm goes to an Aussie named Peter Boadby. Fishing for bait fish off Brisbane, Boadby cast his line and accidently hooked a passing great white shark near the tail. Blissfully unaware that it had been hooked, the shark swam on, then made a U-turn and headed back, obviously figuring to do a little bait fishing itself. Anxious to retrieve his line, Boadby leaned over the gunwale, gaffed the shark and trussed it to his boat--thereupon technically setting a light-tackle record that is likely to remain unchallenged for quite some time. Boadby's line was 6-lb.-test monofilament. The shark weighed 1,039 lbs.

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