The Old Man and the Sea - My First Offshore Adventure!

When I was about ten years old, I remember watching the movie, "Old Man and the Sea", based on Ernest Hemingway's novel.  The drama, the seemingly never ending battle against a monster swordfish, the exhilaration of catching the gigantic fish with a hand line that ripped apart his hands, followed by the old man's exhausting ordeal fighting off the sharks while trying to get the behemoth back to shore whole.  

That story left a mark on me, not only the vastness of the ocean, but the tranquility, the beauty, and also the potential terrors, not only from what lies beneath, but of the sea itself. Although it was a fictional drama, it seemed to me to be very realistic and a well told tale.  The open ocean has been a mysterious wonder of mine for my entire life.

An August sunrise over the Atlantic.  What deep sea monsters and adventures await us at the fishing grounds of "The Old Man and the Sea"?

At that young age, memories of helping my grandfather surf fish off of Ocean City, Maryland while we were on vacation always stuck with me.  I remember cutting squid and mullet for him to bait the hooks on his surf rigs.  I remember him catching lots of small sharks and rays, slammer bluefish, an occasional nice rockfish, sea trout, flounder and one big really big red drum.  That drum seemed gigantic to a ten year old like me.  I remember creating tide pools in the sand to play with Northern puffers that he caught.  I remember tickling their bellies so I could watch them inflate themselves in a defensive maneuver.

While he surf fished, I always remembered "The Old Man and the Sea", and wondered what monster fish might bite his rig and give my Grandfather the fight of a lifetime.  As I grew older and surf fished on my own, I realized that offshore fish like that would never come within surf casting distance.  Still, as I fished and gazed out to the vast open ocean, I always wondered what it would be like to catch a monster fish like that, or, what monsters were inshore that might give me the fight of a lifetime.  

Well, this past summer, thanks to my good friend, Ed Lewandoski, that dream came true as he offered me a nice two day weekend open ocean trip of a lifetime.  One of his trip goals was to catch a big mahi-mahi, but we'd be happy for just about any other gamefish out there that would offer up a good fight.  For me, the entire experience was the goal.  One of the wonders of fishing the ocean is that you really don't know what you'll hook into.  The variety of fish that you may encounter blows my mind.

On our first day, we stopped at the local gas station, gassed up, picked up some eats for the trip out, and bought lots of ice for the fish bag.  After ingesting a couple Dramamine pills during the wee hours of the morning, we dropped Ed's boat in at Chincoteague and headed out to the canyons some 50 to 60 miles offshore.  

Thinking of my comfort, Ed brought a bean bag chair that I could sit in behind the console so I could sleep during the trip out.  Are you kidding me?  Heck, no sleep for me.  I insisted in taking part of every moment.  After all, it's my first trip out to the deep blue.  I wanted to witness everything.  I was so STOKED!  There was no way that I could sleep, even though it was tough to see anything as we plowed through wave after wave in the dark.  It was nice of Ed to think of my comfort though, and I appreciated that.

The ocean was a little choppy, but not bad.  The forecast was pretty good for the first day, and even better the second.  It took a bit of getting used to the rhythmic motion of the boat plowing into one roller after another, but posed no problem for my inner ear.  

As the sun began to rise in the East, Ed encouraged me to keep my eyes out for anything floating in the water, and I mean anything.  If there is something out there on the water's surface, it will attract bait and predators, especially mahi-mahi.  Upon spotting such flotsam, we'd stop and cast for whatever hungry teleosts might inhale our offerings.

Basically, you look for anything out there that floats on the surface, whether it be crab pots, trash, macroalgae like sargassum weed, or balloons, or whatever!  We heard one boat on the radio talking about a pallet floating out there that they caught fish off of.

My eyes scanned the vast ocean as far as my poor eyesight would allow me to see, hoping to see something that might put us on fish, or maybe witness something out there that I may not ever see again.  Ripples on the waves, or the waves in the distance, offered my poor eyesight mirages of potential pelagic critters.  I wanted to see something so bad, that my eyes invented images of sea monsters or lesser activity, when in reality, it may have been just a white capped wave.

Ed told me during our long truck ride about his most recent trip with his pal Jason, when they came across a partially deflated kids foil balloon floating out in the middle of the ocean.  They stopped and cast jigs and caught some really nice sized dolphin (mahi-mahi).  That's all it takes.  He jokes about a time when he saw a party balloon on the ground in at a local grocery store parking lot, and texted a picture to Jason with the caption, "Mahi!".  Only an offshore angler would get excited seeing a downed foil balloon!

When we stopped, finally, after almost a two hour trip out, we set up for trolling one of Ed's spots that he had planned to visit.  The wave action still posed no problem for me.  The Dramamine worked just fine.  After trolling a short while, Ed hooked up and caught the first of several small mahi-mahi.  We trolled various squid type baits at different distances and depths using outriggers to keep some of the baits out to the edge of the boat wake.  

I was amazed at how beautiful mahi-mahi, or dolphin fish, were in person.  In the water, they are absolutely stunning as they approach with electric blue and green coloration.  Even landed, for a brief period, their colors are so vibrant.  What a beautiful fish they are.  Already, my trip was made, catching another species of fish that I've never caught, and a beautiful one at that.

My first ever dolphin fish (aka mahi-mahi).  This little one was released, but we kept some for the table on this trip.  They are so tasty.  I could not get over how beautiful these fish were as they approach the boat, and even while posing for pictures.  Their beautiful colors fade the longer they are out of the water.  Pictures don't really do them justice.

I couldn't believe how blue yet clear the water was.  The prop wash was even a bright blue.  You could easily see fifty feet down or more.  When we hooked fish, the colors were just amazing.  Now, it makes sense when the Wicked Tuna guys yell that they see color when a fish nears the boat.

We had one massive hit that sounded like a canon going off.  We looked around and one of the lines was down, but didn't seem like it had a fish on.  Ed reeled it in, and there was a small mahi hooked and not moving, with massive bite marks across it's body.  A shark, or perhaps a big bluefish, was most likely the assailant.  It probably chased and hit the mahi as it hit Ed's lure or shortly afterwards.

Ed caught this mahi-mahi that was attacked by a toothy critter, perhaps a shark or a big chopper bluefish.

After that, we headed for the canyon.  On the trip out, we came across a pod of bottlenose dolphins.  Ed slowed the boat down and they immediately moved in to frolic in the wake of the boat.  I jumped up and yelled to them like a little kid.  I took a video of that experience (below).  Again, I'm a newb to that world, so forgive me.  I loved it.  One dolphin kept turning and looking at me as I yelled and filmed.  So very cool to make contact with other intelligent life forms!

On the way to the canyon, we passed what I thought looked like a crab pot.  What the heck, way out in the ocean?  I yelled out and Ed slowed down and pulled a U turn.  He guided the boat to within casting distance of a crab pot marker buoy.   Ed asked me to move the bean bag to the front of the boat out of the way.  It was big and bulky, and the only way was to push it around the fish bag.  

I swung the bag partially over the gunwale and gave it a heave toward the front.  Then, disaster struck as the handle on the bag snagged the reel handle of Ed's jigging reel that was sitting in a nearby rod holder.  The weight of the bag broke the rod off at the base of the handle.  The rod and reel fell into the deep blue sea, but I managed to bend over and grab it without falling in myself.  

I felt awful as I handed Ed his brand new broken rod.  He actually was able to use it and caught a bunch of fish jigging with it.  It looked like an ultralight crappie spinning rod combo at this point.  That incident bugged me the rest of the trip, but Ed was a good sport about it.  After the trip, I ordered a replacement for him and had it delivered directly to his house.  As I said earlier, I felt absolutely awful about it.

Meanwhile, I threw a jig/soft plastic combo that worked well for stripers, having never been out there before.  Why did I have that on?  I don't know, maybe just lazy, or confidence, as it was already tied on from striper fishing.  But, I still thought it might work.  It didn't.

Meanwhile, Ed, using his abbreviated rod handle spinning rod, immediately hooked up on his jigging spoon and boated a nice mahi-mahi worth putting in the fish bag.  On his next cast, he hooked, landed and released a smaller one.  

Then, we noticed that there were more crab pots, in fact, a whole line of them, perhaps eight or nine of them.  With no more action at the first crab pot, we moved to the next one.  Ed hooked up again on his next cast and added another keeper for the fish bag.  He then lent me a jigging spoon similar to the one he had luck with, and I hooked up on a small mahi that I released.  

We moved to the next pot and repeated our success.  I'd say that we had at least a fish on for just about all of the crab pots.  None of them were the big monsters that we hoped for, but many of them were good enough for the table, so we added more to the fish bag.

After trying the crab pots a couple more times, the action slowed.  Ed marked the spot on his GPS, so we could return another time.  Then, we continued toward the canyon.  

After about another half hour ride, we finally made it to our destination, the canyon.  We only saw a few boats in the distance all morning long, but we got to the canyon only to find about a dozen or more boats trolling the area.  There were a series of lobster pot markers that everyone trolled around.  Last time out, Ed and Jason caught a couple nice mahi off of them.  We covered a fair amount of water at various depths, but we didn't have any luck trolling around the canyon.

After marking a huge school of fish on the bottom, we tried deep dropping some bait to them.  But, while fishing over 350 feet down or more, you don't feel much without using braided line.  The rods that we used were spooled with mono, and, with the stretch, you couldn't feel anything.  I still managed to catch a new species, something that I've only seen in public aquariums, a chain catshark!  Apparently, this particular species is rarely caught by anglers.  Way cool!  That's what I love about fishing the ocean, you never really know what you will catch!

Most people wouldn't be happy reeling in one of these.  But, I was thrilled. It's a new species for me, and one that is rarely caught by anglers, a chain catshark!

We were hoping to latch on to a tilefish or perhaps a triggerfish, but no luck with that.  After an hour or so, we decided to head back in and troll where we had success earlier, and perhaps troll a couple other locally known hot spots.  On the way back, we saw what we thought was an ocean sunfish.  We went back to look for it, but couldn't find it.  Maybe it was something else, a shark, or a pilot whale perhaps?  Would game fish be hiding under it as well?

We returned to the area where we trolled and caught fish earlier, and locked on to a nice mahi.  I reeled this one in and it turned out to be the biggest mahi that I had the pleasure of boating on the trip.

This nice mahi hit a trolled squid near the end of the first day.  It was a decent sized one, at least for me, the biggest that I reeled in that day.

One thing to note is that when trolling, Ed pretty much did everything.  I helped as much as I could, but he was the one setting up the rigs and outriggers, driving the boat, just about everything needed to troll and catch a fish.  Other than reeling in between spots, I didn't do much except reel a few fish in.  Ed had me reel in the first one, so I guess I caught that fish.  After that, we alternated fish hits and reeling the fish in.  In truth, Ed (or his boat), caught the fish, and I just helped.  

I want to make it clear that, for the entire trip, when we caught fish trolling, it was his strategies, his spots, his efforts, that put fish in the boat.  When I "caught" fish, I did the easy part.  So, when you read this article, please know that when I speak about me catching a trolled fish, it's really "we" caught that fish, or more true, Ed did, and I assisted.

As the trip went on, and I learned the ropes a little bit, I wound up taking orders and helping as much as I could.  Nobody that fishes as much as I do wants to be a deadbeat on the boat.  We want to participate, to do anything to help catch fish, or make the trip easier and less of a burden on the Captain.  And, quite honestly, no boat owner wants to take repeat guests out again if they fall into that deadbeat category.

On the next pass, one of the rods on an outrigger slapped down and we had fish on again.  At first glance, we thought it was a tuna as Ed fought the hard fighting fish and brought it to the boat.  He handed the rod to me and he carefully brought it into the boat with an expert gaff to the lower jaw.  It wasn't a tuna, but rather, a false albacore.  As it turns out, they're not good eating, but the oily meat is good for using as bait for deep dropping to other large species.

Ed caught the first false albacore of the trip.  It put up a great fight and made for a nice picture.  

Ed told me that the false albacore (Euthynnus alletteratus) has several common names, including albie, little tunny, fat albert, bonito, and spotted bonito.  He says that little tunny is probably the most popular name.  No matter what we call them, they are popular game fish, not as table fare, but for their fight.  They hit hard, produce drag ripping runs, and put up an incredible fight for their size.

We caught another Mahi trolling, and not long after that, Ed caught a small, almaco jack, a cousin of the amberjack.  Another species that Ed can add to his list!  We didn't have much time left because Ed wanted to get back before dark, so after a little more time trolling, we headed back to port.

Ed caught an almaco jack, a cousin to the amberjack.  It has a black bar across the eye just like the amberjack.  These fish get pretty large, but not quite as big as it's cousins. 

Close up of Ed's almaco jack.

The next morning brought us even calmer seas.  It was like glass out there with slight rollers.  Obviously, it took us a little less time to get out to where we finished up the previous evening.  We decided since we had all of our luck a bit more inshore, to not make that long run to the canyon.

Here's Ed on the second morning cruising around looking for flotsam as we trolled.  Ed put me on fish during my first open ocean trip, so that qualifies him as a Captain in my book.  Captain Ed Lewandoski...has a nice ring to it, right?

The conditions on the second day were perfect.  Calm glass-like water conditions and overcast skies really seemed fishy to me.  We had to have a good day.  These conditions made it easy to see flotsam further away.

Our first goal of the day was to find those crab pots again.  Ed headed toward the spot that he marked on his GPS a day earlier.  We found them easily, and fished each one carefully.  We caught fish on just about every crab pot again.  Ed had the hot hand, catching at least two on each pot with his broken handled rod.

My first jigging mahi of the second day.  Small, but so colorful and cool.

We gave the crab pots a good effort, and when the action slowed, we decided to troll the spot where we had success at the end of the previous day.  We set up for trolling again, and hooked up almost immediately on our first pass.  After a hard fight and cramping hands, I landed the first false albacore of the day.  They are beautiful fish in their own right! 

I landed another species for me, the beautiful false albacore (also known as bonito or albies).  Man, do they ever fight hard.  They are like miniature tunas!

There were a couple wrecks in the area and a few boats fishing for triggerfish and tilefish, and a couple boats trolling off in the distance.  We wondered if the bonito were hanging out around the wrecks that may have been drawing baitfish.  At any rate, every time we trolled through that general area, we had a fish on.  And all of them were hard fighting albies.  

We trolled back and forth over this particular area and wound up taking turns to catch ten false albacore.  We could have kept on catching one after another, as they were thick and aggressive there.  But, we decided to stop at ten.  Why?  Our shoulders were sore from fighting them one after another!  Also, it was getting late and we both wanted to catch more mahi to bring home.

My shoulders ached and hands cramped after reeling in those false albacore.  One thing that I had to learn was how to reel in the line and guide it back and forth across spool using my thumb, even when fighting a fish.  Doing this keeps the line neat and even on the spool, so line will come off easily if needed and not bind the spool in the reel.  I'm so used to the level wind baitcasting reels that automatically do it for you.  A really big tuna or swordfish would break the line off using a conventional baitcaster because line couldn't come off fast enough.

What lures did we troll with?  Most of the lures were various types of plastic skirted squid type lures rigged either singly or in multiple squid rigs.  The squid lures are four to six inches long and colorful attracting colors.  The picture below shows a few different style squid lures with varying heads that pop, dart, swim or dive, depending on their shape:

Darting and diving squids to the left, popping versions to the right.  Blue and white is thought to resemble the favorite food of mahi-mahi, the flying fish.  Pink and white is also a popular fish catching color.

Spreader bars are used with teaser squids teamed with the actual hooked lures, giving the fish the impression of a school of baitfish, similar to the concept of an Alabama rig used for largemouth bass.  Another popular rig is called a dredge, which may have as many as 100 teasers that are designed to run about 5-10 feet down, almost like a striper umbrella rig.  This rig supposedly resembles a bait ball and can be quite effective, but also tough to reel in with all that drag, as you might imagine.  We didn't use a dredge during this trip.  We used another daisy chain style rig, where several squid like lures were rigged in-line.  

Basically, whatever rig you use, you want the surface and subsurface lures to bounce and thrash the surface to attract fish that think that they are chasing baitfish such as the  flying fish.  There are many other types of rigs, these are just a couple things that we used.  Below is an example of a spreader bar:

The spreader bar dances around causing the squid lures to bounce around like fleeing baitfish.  It creates quite a ruckus.  Reeling these things in as almost like fighting a fish because they have so much resistance. 

Basically, you set up lines off outriggers and several rod holders at different distances apart and behind the boat, to cover as much water as possible.  You have to cover the prop wash as fish are often attracted to them.  You also set up lures just inside and outside the boat wake, and one really far back behind the boat.

On the way to the next spot, we found another group of crab pots and checked them out.  These didn't hold any fish for some reason, so we moved on.  Maybe someone fished them already?  Why didn't these crab hold fish and the others did?  

We stopped at another location where Jason and Ed caught fish on their last trip.  On the first trolling pass, we hooked up again on another good fish.  After a ten minute fight, Ed landed another chunky false albacore.  The next pass yielded a nice mahi for the fish bag.  After a few more trolling passes around that area with no hits, and since it was starting to run late, we decided to head back.

But first, on the way back, we decided to visit the crab pots that we found earlier that held fish.  We found them, and with no other boats around, had them all to ourselves.  We moved from pot to pot, casting jigging spoons and lures toward each one.  Ed hooked up on several mahi-mahi.  Ed had it down pat while I struggled to get bites.  Eventually, I got the hang of it and landed a couple more.  

These pots enabled us to put some more fish in the bag though, so we were happy.  They weren't huge, but, they taste great.  With not much time left, I decided to give a crankbait a try.  I put on a Rapala suspending X-Rap and hooked into a decent mahi-mahi that added to our fish bag total.  When I was fighting this fish, you could see a bunch of mahi underneath in a frenzy trying to get in on the action.  Ed dropped his jig down to them and hooked up immediately, and after a short fight, boated yet another mahi.

Here's a small mahi that I caught on a Rapala X-Rap crankbait.  It was especially fun casting to fish like this.  So much fight in a small package.  I can't imagine what fighting a bull dolphin would be like.  What a pretty fish!

As we pulled up and drifted close to one of the crab pots, we noticed a fish holding about a foot under the surface on the down current side of the crab pot rope.  It was a filefish!  Later, we drifted by another one and it also had a filefish on it.  We noticed the same thing on other ropes.  We wondered deeper down what other species of fish hung out there, and which ones the mahi-mahi fed on.

On the way back, only a few miles from shore, we finally found the huge sargassum weed patch, exactly what everyone looks for further out.  Could predators lurk below the weeds?  The conditions were perfect, clear water, cover, just about everything you'd ask for.  But, after trying several spots without any sign of fish, we gave up and headed back to port.  

We had a long evening ahead of us, as we had to clean fish and the boat, pack up our gear, and we still hadn't eaten anything for dinner.  We'd been up since the wee hours of the morning two days in a row.  It was a tough two days physically, but well worth the effort.  

Ed's fishing vessel docked after a long day of fishing.  

We put in two solid days of fishing out in the open ocean, in water as deep as a thousand feet or more, so deep that the sonar couldn't read the bottom!  I caught three species of fish that I'd never caught before.  Time flies out there too.  Hours flew by like minutes when we were out offshore fishing.  Those ten albies took a lot of time to reel in, about ten to fifteen minutes each.  

Ed's boat is a smaller offshore boat.  So for safely reasons, it's good to do research ahead of time to make sure conditions are on the calm and safe side out there prior to heading out.  There are internet resources and weather/wind phone apps that make available real time conditions.  Most of the larger offshore fishing boats have multiple motors that enable them to get back if one fails.  Ed has a single motor, so it's imperative to be as safe as possible, to plan and hit it right so the conditions make for an enjoyable day on the water.

In addition to that, other safety considerations should include having ditch bag with water, portable VHF radio, water, strobe, reflectors, first aid kit, Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), etc. on board.  It's best to not take chances offshore that you might risk in a bay or river, especially in a smaller boat.

What a terrific experience.  Now, I need to invest in more tackle for another type of fishing.  I think my first investment would be a jigging set up, beefy enough to handle a monster mahi, but with enough finesse to jig comfortably.  I'd also consider a rod and reel combo for deep drop fishing.  Maybe I can do it with one set up.  I have to research a bit more.

The visual appeal of the movie and plot of the book, "The Old Man and the Sea" bounced around in my head throughout the trip.  All I could think about was how beautiful, amazing and surreal it was out on the open ocean.  The entire time, I couldn't believe I was out there.  It was a trip that I will never forget.  And, on top of that, we had some delicious fish to bring home to the table.  And man, did those mahi filets taste great!  Thanks Ed for the trip of a lifefime!