a fishing story

this came to me from jim harker.  please, jim, pardon the odd deletion.

"...here is a story about the best two days of fishing i ever had.  years ago my brother ed, rest his soul, and i owned a 20' grady white cuddy cabin with a 4 cylinder i/o that on a good day could run to the 40 fathom ledge off ocean city, md. on 45 gals. of fuel.  no sat nav, radar, gps, but with a vhs radio that could just about reach the guy in the boat at the end of the dock while in port.  our life raft was a fancified inner tube.  our tuna tower was standing on top of the cuddy holding on to the bow line.  no penn internationals ever came aboard.

men have no brains when it comes to fishing, and we were no exception.  40 miles plus to blue water and the weed line was our goal, albeit the weather had to be just right.  when the seas were 3-4 feet we pounded out our fillings trying to get out with the 40' posts and rybos.  it was worse on the way in when afternoon breezes were in our face[s] and there was a 3-4 hour run to the inlet.

there was one weekend however when the weather was good and gas was still cheap.  we headed out with a box of ballyhoo, a couple of large rigged squid and some home made teasers....that weekend we caught and released 17 white marlin and one small blue.  incredible.  at one point we had three fins in spitting distance.  chaos ensued.  oh to have known  how to throw a fly.  the last one we hooked came along side and i grabbed the bill to release it.  it stared up at me with a large dark eye as if to say what the hell are you doing.  after this we agreed that this was the last time we would target marlin....that was the best weekend [of] fishing i ever had.  now i mooch off younger brother john who has a 32' offshore fishing boat with every imaginable electronic device and piece of tackle.  the fishing is great but it will never be the same as in a small boat alone on a big ocean.  it was the adventure as much as the fishing."