Fishing: Light Fantastic

To non-fishermen, Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea may be just another fish story. Not to Robert Clarke, 58, a civil engineer for whom a pleasant afternoon of trolling off Argus Bank, Bermuda, recently turned into a Hemingwayesque adventure. It was 4:45 when Skipper Russell Young of the charter boat Sea Wolfe hollered "Strike!" as a reel, loaded with 800 yds. of 30-lb.-test monofilament line, began to sing. Clarke grabbed the rod, set the hook, and gaped with astonishment as a monstrous blue marlin leaped clear of the water. "My God," breathed Young. "A 450-pounder, at least!"

It was an epic battle. Hour after hour, while day turned to night and night to day, Clarke and the great fish fought it out at opposite ends of a slender nylon thread no thicker than a pencil mark. Seven times the marlin jumped—great bill-slashing leaps that carried it 10 ft. into the air. A dozen times, while Skipper Young deftly backed and turned the boat, Clarke maneuvered the marlin to within 50 yds. of Sea Wolfe, only to have the fish launch a run that stripped 500 yds. of line off the reel in the space of seconds. The duel went on until 1 p.m., when, after 20 hr. and 15 min. in the fighting chair, Clarke felt his line go slack. The violently thrashing marlin had finally managed to chafe through the thin monofilament and escape. Clarke and Young headed for home.

Desperately disappointed? Naturally. And yet there was glory enough in the losing fight. Both angler and skipper belong to a proliferating new breed of saltwater sportsman; the light-tackle fisherman, to whom the fight is more important than the catch, and sport means giving the fish a sporting chance.

Up the Mountain. Not so long ago, most game-fish anglers favored lines testing at 80 to 130 lbs. of pressure before they would break, heavy, inch-thick rods, and big 9/0 to 12/0 reels almost powerful enough to winch in a whale. But after a fisherman had caught his first dozen sailfish, and heaved enough tuna on the deck to keep the family in sandwiches for years, what sport was there left in the game? What was left was to match the tackle to the fish—and watch his smoke. The 70-lb. white marlin that died like a guppy on the end of 130-lb. line suddenly came alive when the rig was reduced to 30 lb., flashing across the ocean in wild greyhounding leaps; the 50-lb. wahoo that expired without a peep on the end of 80-lb. test lived up to his name on 20 lb.; the 10-lb. bonefish that rolled belly up on 20 lb. became a raging demon on 6-lb. or better still, 4-lb. test, ripping off line so fast that it sounded like a sheet tearing. Says Pete Perinchief of Bermuda's top-rated Anglers Club, which hosts an annual tournament limited to 30 lb. and under: "If a guy down here says he's using anything heavier than 30, we ask him if he's turning commercial—going out for meat, ya' know."