Living Legends of Big Game Fishing: The Men and Their Stories

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PREFACE

A number of famous captains and anglers expressed an interest in contributing articles to the Living Legends book. And some of them had the stature to include their names among those who were finally selected. But, at the end of the day, I had to ask myself how have these participants evolved after their so many decades of fishing for the world’s great game fish? What I believe separates these living legends from many other famous captains and anglers is their transformation from being users of the ocean’s resources to being protectors of the ocean’s resources. Each of these men has seen his share of waste at the weigh station as captains and anglers strive for a new world record or a tournament title. And each has come to the realization that what was fashionable in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s, was not going to be acceptable in the 1990’s, and certainly not in the twenty-first century. No longer do fishing enthusiasts laud the captain who hangs the carcass of a Pacific sail or inedible tarpon on a hook for spectators to gawk at in hopes of snaring a charter for a future day. Anyone who fishes for fun and sport and cares about the future of our fisheries knows well enough to throw back the undersized catches and keep only what he can use. The ocean’s resources ate limited and they are stressed out.

The men who made it into this book know this and live by it. There are no regrets for the way they fished decades ago as that was how it was done. But now the measure of the man and how he will be judged by his peers will depend more upon what he sets free than what he takes. Hanging the carcasses of rare, exotic or endangered fish is just not politically correct anymore. In fact it is unforgivable and grotesque. Sports fishermen, if they are to be called sports, know this lesson and pass it on to others.

This book carries a few pictures of dead fish because they are an important part of the history of big game fishing. Most are records of inestimable importance in the sport. And because they have been shown for the magnificent animals they are or were, a greater appreciation can be had by all for knowing them better.

I have a very good feeling about the direction sport fishing is going when it comes to conservation. It’s coming around to where the guy who takes a twelve gauge pump and massacres a 350 pound hammerhead shark so he can hang it at the dock and draw a crowd, is going to be shunned. The guy who tags a healthy blue marlin and releases it so it can go on to make babies and live another twenty years is the hero.

To a man, every contributor to this book knows, understands and preaches conservation. I have conducted hundreds of interviews in the making of the book and never has one of these captains boasted about the fish they killed. They are the leaders in the sport and have lived through the transformation in attitudes, and now stand out as the respected voices on the subject of ocean conservation. I have been motivated by these men to help them to tell these stories because in the end the oceans can only be saved through awareness of their condition.

It was a heartwarming experience to be present at the Annual Awards Presentation of The Billfish Foundation at the Miami Beach Rod and Reel Club in February 2005. I consider The Billfish Foundation an important resource in the awareness and preservation of pelagic species. Here there are no honors for line class world record catches. Only T&R (tag and release) is respected. This is where important research is being conducted into the spawning habits and migration patterns of all kinds of billfish. At this gathering many of the top ocean scientists and fishing enthusiasts in the world come together to honor their own. It was awesome to see the entire room stand and give an ovation to Ron Hamlin, known to insiders as Captain Hook, as their Man of the Year. Ron has released over 20,000 billfish in his career and has been the foremost voice in favor of circle hooks since the things were invented. I believe that after his so many years on the bridge and his decades of educating fishermen through his example and emails, Ron stands out as perhaps the most important captain of them all. It is for this reason that he is the lead-off storyteller in this book.

So, as you read these stories and view the pictures, don’t be judgmental if some of the scenes and tales are in shades that do not perfectly please your sensibilities. That was then and this is now, and we had to go there to get where we are today.

Captain Ron Hamlin

© Kevin Nakamaru

CAPTAIN RON HAMLIN

Ron Hamlin began his professional fishing career in 1959 in Boynton Beach, Florida on board the charter boat Lucky Penny. From there he began chartering out of Palm Beach with Capt. Frank Ardine where he was first introduced to tagging. In 1967 Ron got his first job as a captain. Later, in the early 1970s, Ron ran the Big Blue for Jerry Bos, and in 1971 Jerry took Ron to Australia where he caught his first grander, a 1,098 pound black marlin on board Kalimar.

Ron then took the captain’s job on Joe Lopez’s boat, Prowess, shuffling throughout the Atlantic and Caribbean. During this time he developed the process for formaldehyde mackerel. This invention allowed anglers to fast-troll for marlin using dead baits, and in 1974 and 1975 they caught more blue marlins than any other boat in the Atlantic Ocean. It was sailfish in Cozumel, marlin in St. Thomas and giant tuna in Cat Cay. In 1975 Prowess was the first American boat to discover the excellent fishing off Venezuela and had a great deal of success with sails, blues, swords and, of course, white marlin. In 1977 Ron took time off from fishing to write the Doubleday book Tournament. Soon thereafter he returned to fishing throughout the Atlantic and Carribean. During this time between the 1980’s until 1994 he caught upwards of about 3,000 billfish.

Then in 1994, at the strong urging of his friend Tim Choate, Ron moved to Guatemala where the sail fishing is unequaled anywhere in the world. Bill Gooch bought the beautiful Carolina built forty-two foot Willis and named it Captain Hook after Ron’s nickname of thirty years. Ron took over as captain and made this one of the most famous billfishing boats in the world. In Guatemala Ron became a serious enthusiast of tagging and pioneered the use of circle hooks with billfish. In the time since his arrival there, Ron has released 20,000 billfish, mostly sails, and has tagged more than 7,000 of them.

With over 40 years of experience on the bridge, Capt. Hamlin has earned a world class reputation as an award-winning sportfishing guide. He is also accomplished at offshore fly techniques and has held six world fly fishing records, four for sails, and one each for white and blue marlins. For his efforts at conservation of the billfish species with circle hooks and tagging and releasing, he has won many awards, but the one of which he is most proud is the NOAA Environmental Hero Award.

In addition to numerous tournament victories Capt Hamlin has continued with a consistent pattern of awards and world records dating as far back as 1974 when he took his first world record for a fifty-six pound sailfish on twelve pound tippet. In 1977 he was also the first person to ever catch a swordfish in the Bahamas on rod and reel. In 1984 he established the records for the largest blue marlins ever caught in Venezuela and Puerto Rico, 1,023 and 984 pounds respectively. In that same year Capt Hamlin set the world record for white marlin on fly. Other records and awards include the following:

1990- World record blue marlin on sixteen pound tippet

1997- award from the Billfish Foundation for most sailfish released, and Sportsman of the Year Award from Youth Club of South Florida for conservation work with circle hooks

1998- AFTCO Award for most sailfish released; most Pacific sailfish released in one day (71); since broken by himself; AFTCO Award for most sails tagged in the Pacific; AFTCO Captain of the Year

1999- World record sailfish on fly; AFTCO Award for most billfish tagged in one year (1600+); most billfish in one year (2,555); most sailfish on fly in one year (432)

2000- World record sailfish on 8 pound tippet; The Billfish Foundation’s Top Release Captain; AFTCO award for Top Captain in the tagging category; Environmental Hero Award from NOAA for protection of the environment

2001- AFTCO Top Tagging Captain

The Billfish Foundation Top Sailfish Tagging Captain in the Pacific; The Billfish Foundation Captain of the Year 2002, 2003, 2004

In 2005 on board Captain Hook, Ron’s anglers tied Pelagian’s world record of 27 sails caught on fly in a single day.

Capt. Hamlin’s plans for the future include continuing his conservation efforts on behalf of the ocean’s billfish and starting a school for young anglers to teach them the lessons he has learned over forty-five years of sport fishing.

FIRE ONBOARD THE PREMIER CRU

by

RON HAMLIN

I was bringing the forty-one foot Striker called Premier Cru up from St. Thomas. The year was 1982, and on board with me were two mates, Greg and Bait, and my fiancé, Danielle. We were at the end of a 400 mile leg to South Caicos, only thirteen miles left to go, and from the bridge, the Riding Rock Inn could be seen on the horizon. The Striker performed best at slower speeds and we were cruising at ten knots on the way in. At about 3:30 in the afternoon I decided that if I boosted the throttle a little, we would be able to make it in to port before Customs closed, thus avoiding the overtime we would otherwise have to pay if we arrived too late. I throttled up to about fourteen or fifteen knots, not the best performance speed for this boat, but with the island in view we could be in within the hour.

Meanwhile down in the engine room, what I believe was a faulty oil line ready to let go, must have had more stress than it could handle. The boat backed off its speed all by itself without my touching the throttles. This was not good. The hatch on the engine compartment was very tight so I could not hear anything that sounded wrong. I would just have to climb down off the bridge to see what was the matter.

The engine hatch was just inside the cabin. The instant I opened the cover to the compartment all hell broke loose. I believe that the fire had already started and was contained somewhat on account of the automatic CO2 system. It’s possible that the CO2 had been keeping the fire under control, but it had not put it out completely. And because the oxygen in the compartment had been burned up, die fire did not have all the ingredients it needed to grow or spread. When I opened the engine hatch it set up a classical backdraft situation. Oxygen rushed into the compartment and fire leapt out and reached all the way to the cabin overhead. I reacted as quickly as I could, barely getting out of the way fast enough to avoid being burned. The instant the flames shot out of there, the fire was out of control. Our main fire control device had been used up and there was no time to stand there and throw water on it. I had a greater fear that something would soon explode and injure or kill one or all of us, so I made a quick decision to abandon everyone safely from the boat.

I yelled for everyone to head for the bow. I repeated this several times. Danielle and the mates had to climb through the cabin windows to get up to the bow. I was fortunate in that my briefcase that contained our money and passports was right at the side of the cabin doorway and I was able to grab it as I backed away. While Danielle and Greg and Bait were scrambling to get out onto the bow, I hustled up to the bridge. I knew the flames were right under me so I only had a few seconds to act. Knowing that the Riding Rock Inn monitored channel sixteen, I put out a Mayday on the radio.

Premier Cru had no life boat, but by some stroke of good luck while we were in St. Thomas we had found a small Zodiac about nine feet long. We used it as a utility boat for rowing around and snorkeling. When we headed to Caicos we hauled it up onto our bow and let it ride up there. In it at the time of the fire were a mask, fins and a half jug of water. While I was on the bridge calling in the Mayday and putting the engines into reverse with the auto pilot still on, Greg and Bait launched the Zodiac. Danielle grabbed a life preserver and all three of them jumped overboard and climbed into the Zodiac. I followed a few seconds behind them.

Within a minute or two, one of the engines shut down which caused the boat to move in circles. I was concerned that we might he in its erratic path, but that ended up not being a problem. From a distance we watched the boat become engulfed in flames. It was a burning, melting, stinking mass of diesel fuel from the tanks, aluminum from the hull, and a combination of those materials that were contained in the interior of the boat, including the furnishings, electronics, our clothes and all of our fishing gear and provisions. It was an impressive flame that I will never forget. Soon the stem started taking on water and it took only a few minutes for the boat to begin to sink. For awhile the one engine continued to run and then it too shut down. We watched as Premier Cru did its final death dance. Fire hissed and crackled as the hull sank deeper and deeper from the stern. And then as if in its final death throes, it sank beneath the surface and did not stop until it rested on the bottom.

From the bridge I had been able to see South Caicos Island. My eye level was about fifteen feet above the surface of the ocean. But from the Zodiac we were at sea level and could only see the horizon. While I knew which direction we needed to head to get to the island, Danielle was not so certain of that. She was terribly shook up from the experience, as we all were, and she was scared, as she had a right to be. I knew the direction we had to follow, because I knew the direction of the wind and currents. I knew they were favorable and in time we would end up pretty close to where we wanted to be. But Danielle questioned that and could not relax even for a minute.

We drifted for hours, through the evening and into the deep hours of the night. The moon came up, and undisturbed by any outside light source, our night vision was very good. Eventually we were able to make out a lump in the water that we guessed to be a small island. No matter what other options were or were not available to us, this island held much better possibilities for us than the Zodiac did. We used the fins as paddles and made our way up to the small coral outcropping. We could hear waves breaking against its shore so we knew we had to get around the other side of it in order to come ashore. A few more minutes of paddling and we were there. The coral rock was as sharp as glass and we had to be very careful climbing out of the boat. Once we were on shore we could not move around very much because we only had two pairs of shoes between us, and we had to hand them back and forth in order to move around. But in spite of everything, we knew we were on solid ground which greatly improved our chances of survival.

We had been soaked by the sea and cramped up in that small Zodiac for many hours. In the night the temperature had dropped precipitously and Danielle was most certainly suffering from hypothermia. As awful and jagged as the surface of the coral rock was, we had to lie down and try to give each other body warmth just to make it through the night. Danielle’s condition was bad and I did not want it to worsen. We curled up together in a small ravine that offered only the slightest relief from the jagged rocks, but on account of our extreme exhaustion we were able to sleep.

I was awakened by Greg and Bait’s yelling at a passing Bahamian lobster boat. We hailed the native lobster man over and told him of our dilemma of having lost our boat and struggling to get onto this small rock outcropping. The man said he had seen the smoke and fire of Premier Cru the day before, but he could not get out to us because of the sun setting in his eyes. Rescue was at hand and I did not want to jeopardize that, but at the same time I knew the man was lying. Our boat sank to the cast of Caicos and the sun would have been setting behind the man. Anyhow, I didn’t say anything about that. I just wanted to get my crew back to land. I asked the Bahamian to help us out. He balked because he had lobster to catch and he would lose money if he stopped now to help us. My urge was to put this man on the coral rock and take my crew back to Caicos in his boat. But I didn’t want a hassle so I offered to double what the man would make this day by lobstering if he would give us a ride back in. He agreed. The lobster boat could not come ashore for fear of damage to the hull on the sharp rocks. No problem, we would jump in the water and swim over to him. But there was a problem I did not know about. Danielle had never told me that she could not swim. While I wanted to tear into her for being so stupid as to take an ocean voyage in a small boat without having this basic skill, this was not the time. I gently coaxed her into jumping into the water with the life preserver on and together we swam over to the boat.

It took a while to get settled once we reached land. There was Customs to clear and reports to make about the boat. We had to find a place to clean up and something to eat. The report of the sinking was made to the authorities and was made available to the boat’s owner, Bill Reed, so he could file his insurance claim. When I spoke to Bill and told him of the loss of his boat, his only concern was for me and Danielle and the crew. He didn’t even ask about the boat, he just wanted to be certain that we were all right His concerns were in the right place for a good boat owner, and I have always appreciated that.

The Mayday I sent out was never received. The Riding Rock Inn was closed, so I’m not sure anyone anywhere ever heard my call. But I learned an important lesson that day. Even though I had at that time been a Captain for many years, there was a lesson here that everyone should learn. When there is a fire on board a vessel, there is very little time to react. Events happen in an instant and things go down hill at breakneck speed. Flames can engulf a boat in seconds, explosions can occur, even on diesel machines. Near panic sets in and split second decisions can mean the difference between a successful evacuation and rescue, and tragedy. It is always best to have a fire plan in place before the boat leaves the dock.

CAPTAIN WITHOUT A CLUE

by

RON HAMLIN

I was nineteen years old in the summer of 1963 when I ventured up to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to see what the action might be like and look for a job as a mate on one of the local charter boats. Upon arriving there I found that there were no jobs available for mates, but there was a job available for a captain. I told the owner that I was more of a mate than a captain, but he asked me if I knew how to run a boat. I said sure I could, and so he said I was hired. Naturally I was nervous about this responsibility but I had some friends up there who said they would help me out, keep me from getting lost and, in general, look out for me.

We were entered in the Atlantic City Tuna Tournament. For this tournament the committee would blow a clacton at five in the morning for the start of fishing. Since I was following two other boats that knew the way out, I could not be a minute late for the start. I told this to the the owner and his family and they agreed. My instructions to them were that we were to meet between 4:30