Desert Rat Catching the Blues

Traveling is a part Military life. I have been very lucky to have had a lot of temporary duty both in the States and overseas. My latest trip was to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Where I was going for training as a machinist. Needless to say I wasn’t too happy about going to NEW JERSEY. I imagined this country to look like this big giant ghetto scene. I thought the closest thing to wildlife in New Jersey was a pigeon. Well I was wrong!

On the plane flight I had the good fortune to sit with another Arizona native. He was from the Bisbee area. He said that New Jersey was called the Garden State.

 I asked, “Where are all the gardens? In the window sills of the sky scrappers?”

The gentleman replied, “There aren’t that many skyscrapers. The state is very green and full of outdoor activities. The fishing is great, you need to go out to the coast and do a little deep-sea fishing.”

We exchanged information and he gave me the name of a town where there are party boats that charter day fishing trips. We parted ways and the last thing he said was good luck on “The Draw”(yea he’s an Arizona native.)

When you go to these schools you usually go by yourself.  You meet about 10 to 15 other members of different units from other states. If you don’t like to talk to strangers you can be one lonely person. Those of you who know me know that I have no problem talking to strangers. So when I got to class I started asking around to find out who had the same interests as I. It didn’t take long and I was sitting with a couple of new fishing friends. Chris is from Nebraska and Jimmy from Washington. Both of these guys turned out to be just as fanatical as I am about the outdoors. We would no sooner get out of class and then we would head down to a pond filled with channel cats, crappie, bass and bluegill. I don’t think there was a day when we went down to the pond and didn’t catch at least 20 to 25 fish apiece. The down side was that none of the fish we caught, except for the 8 pound Large Mouth that Jimmy caught, were of any size. Sorry I don’t have a picture of that one, we didn’t have a camera. Jimmy was a little upset by the fact that he only has his memory for a photo of that really nice fish. By the way Jimmy, thanks for letting her go. Oh yea, and congratulations for catching the biggest bass of your life.

Well that set the stage for our next outing. That Saturday Jimmy, Chris and I rented a car and drove to the coast to get on one of those party boats. I had gotten some phone numbers and directions to Barnegate Light Point to go fishing on the Miss Barnegate Light. She was a 95-foot catamaran that moved at the whopping speed of 25 miles an hour. When we got on the boat the deck mates were cutting up bait that looked like 2 pound Mackerel. They would cut them up into 3”x 3” squares and throw them into a big 55-gallon drum. They then start handing out these rental fishing poles that were as thick at the tip as our bass rods are at the bottom. Most of the poles were already rigged for the fish that were biting for that time of the year. The hooks looked to be about a 4/0 size hook and about 3 inches in length with a piece of bailing wire tied off between the hook and the monofiliment of 100 pound test.  I asked what could we possibly be catching that would require the use of such heavy tackle. The deck hand replied, “Speeding freight trains.” THE BLUES.

For those of you land locked desert rats like myself. The Blue fish is a schooling fish built like a torpedo with teeth like a shark and the appetite of a piranha.  The meat is a very firm, dark, and excellent eating when cooked on the grill Cajun style. They have a dark silver-blue back with a chrome side that flashes like polished silver when they swim to the surface.

We were about an hour out to sea when the captain started to slow the boat down. The deck hands started to scurry about dropping off little white buckets of chopped up Mackerel next to every third pole. The main deck hand was at the front of the boat and started to let the anchors down. Once the boat was settled the deck hands starting to shovel out this chum. That attracted just about every sea gull in the Atlantic Ocean to our location.  A horn blew and the Captains’ voice came over a loud speaker and said, “Good Luck.”

It wasn’t 10 minutes when some folks on the opposite side of boat started to yell in excitement that someone had caught a fish. This went on for about an hour before a gentleman next to me leaned back and set the hook on one of these speeding freight trains. No sooner had he set the hook and the line was stripping off his reel and that oversized rod started to bend. After about 3 minutes fighting the fish a deck hand was able to gaff it from the water. Man, do those fish have some teeth. I watched as they took the hook out of the fish’s mouth. This fish has rows of shark like teeth and looks like a good place to loose a finger if you stuck it in his mouth. The fish was about 25 to 27 inches in length and about 20 inches in girth at its widest point. 

I let my line back into the water and started to pull line from the reel and got about 50 feet of line out when all of sudden my line started to strip off like a freight train had run into my bait. I locked down the gears and set back on the rod and felt that fish pull on the other end of the line. It felt like I was hooked on to a baby bull. It didn’t take long for this fish to loose his fight and I had him landed in the boat with in a minute or so. It wasn’t this biggest Blue Fish on the boat but I sure got a taste of what a big one might feel like.

Minutes later both Jimmy and I had a couple of real nice fish on. I had let out about 200 feet of line and was starting to bring my bait back in when I almost had the rod jerked clean out my hands. This big Blue made a run out away from the boat and started to strip line for a second or 2 and then made a charge to the front of the boat. There was nothing I could do but run with the fish leading the way about 90 feet up the deck when the fish stopped and tried to head for the bottom. I was able to stand and start to fight him. It seemed to take forever but after about 5 minutes the gaff was stuck under the jaw of the 13-pound bruiser. You want to talk about a rush.  By this time Jimmy had his fish on the deck and told Chris that he had better get to fishing.

The bite stayed on for another hour or so and Chris finally caught his first and last fish of the day. Turned out though, his was the biggest out of the group, 14 pounds. Jimmy had caught 2 more at about 10 pounds each and I had hooked up 2 fish but lost them. Of course, those were the biggest.

The Captain’s voice came over the load speaker and told us to bring up the lines. The anchor was lifted and we headed back to Barnegate Light. On the way back all the fish were weighed and money was paid to the big fish of the day winner. I think it was a little over 15-pounds. Another nice thing about this boat as with many other party boats was that the deck hands clean and filet the fish for you. Those Blues sure made a real nice meal for all of us back at post.

If by chance any of you desert rats get a chance to head to the Atlantic coast of NEW JERSEY stop and see the guys at the Miss Barnegate Light and head to sea for Blue fishing. The cost for the day was $40.00 for everything.

I hope you enjoyed,

Louis Urquides,

Hunting Editor for AZOD