By: Danny Lavane
No one expects to learn a life-long lesson during a fishing trip, especially when you are young. Fishing as a child was always fun and entertaining. My grandfather and I have been fishing together for many years, and we won tournament after tournament. Most people do not realize the hard work that goes into a day trip into the big blue Atlantic Ocean. The time that I realized how much work really went into fishing, I learned a lesson that I would never forget. Even one that I would pass on to my own children as they grow up fishing with my grandfather and me.
In late spring of 1992, on a Friday evening, the night before the fishing tournament, my grandfather sat me down and said, "I am going to teach you how to make these rigs and finish rigging the baits." That had always been something that I wanted to learn to do after watching him for eight years prior to this night. We sat there on his dock, and we rigged baits and made new rigging for hours that night with the sunset in the distance. Overlooking the river in his backyard, he proceeds to tell me that we have an early morning and we needed to get some rest. Of course, as a young child I did not understand why we needed to go to bed so early.
The following morning my grandfather wakes me up at 4 a.m. and says, "boy its time to get going"! Excited, I jump out of bed and hurry down the stairs and out on the dock. By the time I made it to the boat I was freezing. For it to be springtime in Florida, the weather was unusually cool in the early hours of morning. "Wait grandpa" I yelled, "I need a jacket". At that moment he holds up my jacket that he had already put in the boat. He looked at me like he knew that I was going to ask for that jacket, with a huge smile on his face he say's "anything else you need?" Now, I started to see how far in advance my grandfather was thinking. I put on my jacket, we told my grandmother we loved her, and we were off.
As we pull away from the dock, we noticed that there was a little bit more wind than had been forecasted from the night before.
When the wind gusts are higher, that means that the ocean could be rougher than projected. We stroll down the intercoastal waterway and I'm shivering from the wind blowing in my face. As we were strolling along, we noticed that the river was very calm, even with the wind. I even remember him mentioning how calm it was. We are starting to pull into the inlet's no wake zone and my grandfather started slowing the boat down to a minimum wake, which is about five miles per hour. Once we slowed down, that made the wind seem to die down for the moment and it felt like it warmed up twenty degrees in no time. It took us fifteen minutes to get through the no wake zone and then we sped back up and through the inlet to the Atlantic Ocean we go.
We hit the exit of the inlet at about 4:30-4:45 that morning and we instantly realized that it was going to be a rough day on the water. My grandfather's Grady White boat was getting beaten wave after wave. The ocean spray was blowing all over us in the wind, and it was so dark that you could not see anything. We just started out through the inlet and had over an hour ride left to go before we start fishing. I am soaking wet and freezing cold, I look over at him and he is focused on the task at hand. Both hands on the wheel and the throttle is wide open. Fishing a tournament is not cheap, so he was focused on winning. Wave after wave, minute after minute, we keep heading out into the ocean. The site of the hotels behind us faded until you saw nothing but water. I asked him, when are we going to start trolling and he said when we reach 200 feet deep. I kept my eyes on his depth finder, 120,150,160,180, then finally 200 as he slowed the boat down.
We get the outriggers set out and start setting the bait out that I helped rig the night before. All seven lines are out and in about thirty minutes, I can hear the snap of an outrigger clip release and we have our first fish on the line. My grandfather always let me reel the fish in because he wanted to be the person driving and gaffing the fish. As the fish is running off the line on the reel and the boat rocking me back and forth, I screamed, "I can't do this".
The fish was fighting hard, and my little arms could not take it. My grandfather looks directly at me and speaks deeply, "YOU DON'T TELL ME YOU CAN'T, REEL THAT FISH IN!" So, in a hurry I start pulling up on the rod and reeling the line in until I get it close to the boat. My grandfather positions me where he can get a clean gaff in, and BAM, one Mahi Mahi in the boat. This day is starting out pretty good.
As the sun starts coming up over the horizon, so does the temperature.
Between catching a good sized mahi and the sun, I'm finally starting to warm up. As the sun comes up, you can see all the clouds in the distance.
This can be a bad thing if it shifts and comes our way. It was already rough enough I thought, and snap, another outrigger clip releases. The second fish on the hook. I grab the rod from my grandfather and start holding it tightly.
It was another mahi and it looks like he is even bigger than the last one. After about 30 minutes, my arm is tired from holding the rod and trying to reel. My legs are tired from trying to keep my balance and I have the ocean salt all over my body. I yelled out again, "I can't do it grandpa, my arms hurt." He turned to me and let me have it again, "YOU DON'T TELL ME YOU CAN'T, JUST REEL IN THAT FISH".
I swallowed my pride and started to reel right past my arms and my legs. Mahi number two in the boat. This one was twice the size of the first. A wonderful start to a fishing tournament day.
For the next few hours, the fishing settled down quite a bit. While we were just trolling around in the ocean my grandfather asked me why I keep saying that I can't reel them in? Before I even got words out of my mouth, he proceeded to say, "you never say that you can't because you can do anything that you set your mind to. Always remember, that if you start out with 'I can't', then you never will. You are very capable as you have shown to yourself, so do not ever tell me you can't again". "Yes sir" I replied and began thinking about what he was really trying to tell me over the next few hours.
At almost 4 o'clock in the afternoon the ocean really started to get rough. The boat rocked back and forth really bad. The sun went away as the clouds began to move in, and then the rain. I remember to this day how cold that rain felt on my skin. I helped my grandfather put up the rain curtains around the console of the boat. Seconds after we sat down, I saw one of the rods in the holder start to bend and bounce. Then the reel started to scream, and we were catching another fish. Again, my grandfather hands me the rod as I try to gain my balance.
The way the fish was pulling off the line, you could tell it was big. Just holding the rod while the fish was running was hurting my arms. Then here comes the thought of I CAN'T into my head. But this time, I didn't say it. I remembered what he had told me, so I grit my teeth and began to reel the fish in. I went back and forth with this fish for over an hour. I reel some in and he pulls some back out. By the time I get it to close to the boat, the fish starts jumping and flipping in the water. It's a sailfish, my very first one. I had never caught al sailfish before. I continued to go back and forth for what seemed like forever, and we finally landed this fish into the boat. My grandfather is so excited and now we have three big fish to weigh in.
It's getting late and we pull in our lines and outriggers. "Clean up the bait riggings and let's head to the weigh in", he says. At this point in the day, I am exhausted. I have been trying to keep my balance all day and it gets extremely tiring. After an intense and rough ride home, we finally make it close to the inlet. I can see the lighthouse in the distance which means we are getting close.
Twenty more minutes go by, and we are both excited to be pulling up to the weigh in station. We call the weigh station employees on the radio, "this is Sugar (the name of the boat) we have fish to weigh" my grandfather said. "Go ahead and pull in Sugar", they announced. As we get close to the dock, I can see my grandmother sitting on the balcony waiting to see what we have caught.
The boat is docked, and my grandfather starts to pull out the fish one by one.
One mahi, then two mahi and the crowd watching is cheering at this point. They weigh the mahi and bring them back to the boat and we have a first-place fish!
We are screaming with joy and remembered that we still have the sailfish in the other fish box. My grandpa puts the mahi away and starts to pull out the sailfish and the crowd goes wild. We have the first sailfish at the weigh in so far, which puts us in first place in that category too. We pull off, heading back to the house and keep listening on the radio for the final weigh in totals. As we pulled into the dock at the house, we start cleaning up the boat which takes forever. My grandfather always made sure you got the saltwater off everything important; the boats are not cheap to maintain already, especially when you do not take care of them.
After the boat is cleaned the way he wants, we can start taking the fish out of the boxes and taking our pictures with them. I could not hold the sailfish by myself, so he had to help me hold it. My grandmother got a good one of the two of us together. I was just beside myself with excitement to tell my mom and dad about the experience of getting my first sailfish.
Every time I go fishing now, whether it is in the ocean or not, I start thinking about the words my grandpa had said to me that day. Never say you can't, always try. Just remember if you start off with you can't, then you never will.
You can do anything you set your mind to. I even think about it in my life now as an adult, and I use that saying with my children.
My grandfather and I still go fishing together and I still get great advice from him. It is a great joy to see him fishing with my children and knowing that they will see what a great man he is and always has been. I have the picture hanging on the wall as a reminder of one of the greatest times in my life. I learned a life's lesson and had fun while doing it, thanks to my grandfather.
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