Eating a Record

This short story began when my good friend Matt arrived in Martha’s Vineyard for a week of fishing. The weather had been rough for a while, the bass fishing had been terrible, the bluefish were all tiny, the visibility was too poor to spearfish and the flounder were almost nonexistent. We got back from the Steamship Authority to our house and began rigging up for what we hoped would be a great week of fishing. We were both hopeful, but neither one of us really expected anything good considering how it had been all year.

The first day we walked down to my boat, threw our gear in and began to fish. A couple hours later we had nothing to show for it, and I felt bad that I was not putting my friend on fish. I did what any desperate fisherman does when he needs to catch a fish and went bottom fishing. Scup after scup after scup came up from the wreck and we decided to call it quits with them. We decided to try for (in my opinion) one of the most delicious and pound for pound the hardest fighting fish in the sea, the tautog. Over the past two years I had been fishing and spearfishing for tautog. It was time to put all of that knowledge to good use.

We zipped over to my favorite beach to find crabs underneath the rocks. After filling a bucket we traveled another 50 yards to my secret spot and began to cruise around looking for fish. I truly love my polarized glasses when I’m navigating these rocks. I cut the engine and gently lowered down the anchor, trying not to spook the fish in the area. Matt began to rig our favorite tautog rig, a simple sliding one ounce sinker and a 3/0 Gamakatsu octopus hook. He cut the claws and legs off of a crab after cutting it in half and then slid it onto the hook. We could see a couple tautog cruising around the rocks as the water was shallow, and Matt made a beautiful cast to it. It slowly nibbled on the crab in only a way that a tautog will do, and then sucked in. Matt set the hook and the battle began. I began to laugh as we had not been here a minute and already had one fish on. Too bad it was just short of the legal keeper limit of 2014, 16 inches. I rigged up the heavy duty rod and dropped it down to the bottom with the biggest live crab we had on the hook.

Two hours off flipping and catching small tautog was fun, but as the sun got lower on the horizon we knew we needed dinner so we decided to reel up. All of the lines were in the boat besides the one giant live crab that had been in the water since we got there. The rod hadn’t moved the entire time, and we were both a little surprised. Matt was up front putting the anchor away and getting comfortable so I reeled up the last rod. That was when it happened. One crank and the line was tight. I thought nothing of it as I figured it would be seaweed but that was when the “seaweed” began ripping drag off of my spool. Matt and I glanced at each other, stunned that a fish this big was on the line. With fifteen pound test on the reel I was a little bit worried about getting snapped off in the rocks. Matt jumped into action, started the motor and followed the fish with me cranking furiously in the bow of the boat. Maneuvering throughout the rocks the fish wanted to go to deep water where he would surely wrap me up on a rock or a log. Knowing that if we wanted to have any chance of landing this fish we would have to crank down the drag and hope for the best. The fish stopped pulling out line and I pulled up and reeled down again and again. The silver underside of the fish was ten feet below the boat when it got a second wind. With me thumbing the spool he ran another hundred yards (I have two hundred and fifty yards of line on my spool and can measure with the height of it) deeper into the depths. Matt gunned the engine and chased off after him at around five knots and we couldn’t get any line back. I looked up and realized we were exactly where we didn’t want to be… The Losing Wreck. I call it The Losing Wreck because as soon as a fish gets in it, you won’t get him back out. Rod tip up and reel down. Repeat. For around eight minutes we played his game of cat and mouse until we got it boat side. It was the biggest tautog I have ever seen and Matt and I could do nothing but stare, eyes wide and with open mouths.

Matt was the first to snap out of this trance and quickly grabbed the gaff and stuck it home in the gill of the tautog. While lifting him onto the boat the line broke. What luck! We sat down on the bench of the little Whaler, silent. Once again he broke the silence. “Is that a giant or what?” he said. I was in awe and didn’t even hear his question, but was thinking the same thing. Our day of fishing was over, we had plenty for dinner, and a memory that will last us a lifetime.

After eating the fish we were looking at world record tautog and it turns out that the fish would have been a world record for its line class, 15lb test. It was estimated to be 19.53lbs by IGFA and it had a length of 25 inches and a girth of 25 inches as well. It’s stomach contained mussels, soft shell clams, crabs and seaweed. I personally don’ think the estimate is correct, but my guess is around 14lbs.

NOTE: IN THE PHOTO THE PERSON HOLDING THE FISH (Matt) IS 5 ft 11 in. tall!