(Originally posted 5/30/05)

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to join three of my friends on a deep-sea fishing trip out in the Atlantic off the coast of Charleston, SC. It was a truly phenomenal experience, and one which everyone should try at least once. We traveled on a boat named the “Hot Shot” out of Charleston, a 43-foot beauty built by Ricky Scarborough. The captain was Dick Vance, and his son David was the first mate. His nephew John was also along. The four fishermen were myself and my friends Rod, Kris, and Tony.

We set out on Sunday, May 15th, at 0500 in the morning. It was pitch dark, and we were all a bit out of it from Dramamine and not enough coffee. The ride out was smoother than I expected, even when we cleared the harbor and the captain gunned the engines for the trip out. It was a little hard to walk around the boat, and we all got some laughs watching each other try, only to fall on our asses. The sun came up over the ocean around 7:00, and that was quite a sight. It also lit everything up, and we could see that we were miles away from everything. The water was an indescribable color of blue…deep, dark blue. I found myself staring at it constantly, marveling at its natural beauty and wondering what was swimming around under the waves. I had a lot of music going through my head…big orchestral sounds, pirate-type music. There were also swarms of flying fish all around. They looked like little mullet fish with dragonfly wings! They would jump out of the water and fly in a straight line for about 50 feet, then drop back into the water again.

About 7:30, we made it to the Gulf Stream. We were about seventy miles from land. The crew set up the outriggers, which were fascinating in themselves. Through a maze of pulleys and wire, they kept all twelve of the fishing lines from getting tangled. The mates baited up the hooks with little ballyhoo fish, ran them out, and we were fishing! Rod got the first one, and that was pretty exciting as well. One of the reels started spinning like mad. David and John jumped into action as the captain directed traffic from up on the bridge. Making a clear path for the line, David set the hook and handed the pole to Rod, who was already in the chair. About five minutes later, Rod was reeling in the first catch of the day…a big dolphin! They were very pretty, with many shades of blue and green and yellow on their scales. They lost color once we reeled them in, and David gaffed them, picked them up and threw them in the large ice bin at the back of the boat.

Then it was my turn. I had the distinction of being the only one of us to lose a fish that day, and I lost it right at the boat when the line broke! I was anxiously waiting my turn as Kris and Tony caught their first fish, and Rod caught another. When I finally got another shot, I was determined not to miss this time. When the fish bit, I jumped in the chair and David handed me the pole. I had to remind myself to not pull too hard going up with the pole, and reel in like crazy on the way down, never giving my finned friend any slack. Finally, I got to the end of the reel and David was gaffing my first catch! It was a dolphin about three feet long and around 30-ish pounds. He put up quite a fight, even after he was in the bin. We could hear them slapping the sides and flopping around like mad. What a rush that was!

We ended up catching eleven dolphin that day, not even seeing another kind of fish. On the way back in, we saw a group of porpoises chasing our boat. They would pace us, then swim ahead and criss-cross in front. It was almost like having a dog chase your car. They played like that for several minutes, then they disappeared. They either got bored or realized we weren’t going to stop and feed them. When we got back to the harbor, we unloaded our catch, took some pictures, and watched the captain cut up the fish for us. Good thing we brought several coolers! I ended up giving away a lot of the fish when I got back home, but Diane and I will still get several meals of mahi-mahi out of the trip. Our feet hadn’t even hit the dock yet when we started planning another trip out. Again, it was an experience I will never forget. For more information on the charter we took and fishing trips in general, check out the Hot Shot web site.