The Deep Sea Fisherman

This week we meet Storm. Storm is a serious deep sea fisherman. A passionate deep sea fisherman. Even if it’s only his hobby. Even if he only gets to do his thing a few days each year.  

Storm has the boat, the tackle, and the knowledge to catch the big fish out in the deep water. Too bad he doesn’t have much time.  

And no matter what the Stones might have told us back in 1964, time, that most precious of all commodities, is definitely not on our side. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Storm. Storm is a serious deep

(00:46):
sea fisherman, a passionate deep sea fisherman, even if it's
only his hobby, even if he only gets to do
his thing a few days each year. Storm has the boat,
the tack, and the knowledge to catch the big fish
out in the deep water. Too bad, he doesn't have

(01:06):
much time, and no matter what the stones might have
told us back in nineteen sixty four, time that most
precious of all commodities is definitely not on our side
the deep sea fishermen. Storm leaves the dock just after

(01:29):
eleven PM. He wants to clear the Manasquan Inlet by midnight.
It's a long haul out to the canyon, five to
eight hours, depending upon winds, currents, and where the big
fish might be running. The forty five foot Grady White
Canyon four fifty six, with its twin c twelve caterpillar

(01:53):
diesel engines churning out fourteen hundred horses might not be
the fastest boat heading for the canyon, but she's a
brick shit house capable of handling just about anything the
unpredictable and unforgiving North Atlantic might throw her way. Earlier,

(02:13):
Storm filled the twin tanks with just over six hundred
gallons of marine diesel costs just over twenty two hundred bucks,
which is why Storm always tries to bring a crew
of at least three, even if they don't know dick
about deep sea fishing, even if they spend the whole

(02:34):
trip drinking beer and pissing over the stern or down
in the cabin barfing in the head from seasickness. Five
hundred bucks apiece to fish the canyon. If Storm holds
back on the throttle, which he won't once he starts
getting antsy, those sea twelves will burn at least a
gallon of diesel for every nautical mile traveled. They clear

(02:59):
the inlet and head due east. This time of year,
late June, it'll be about four hours before the first
glow of a new day shows on the horizon. They
will be most of the way to where the big
fish might be found along the continental shelf, where the
coastal waters mix with the warm Gulf stream and the

(03:20):
Atlantic drops quickly from one hundred fathoms to nearly one
thousand fathoms. Primary focus will be on the yellowfin tuna,
the big eye tuna white marlin, and its close cousin,
the famous and massive blue marlin. Yellowfin should be plentiful,

(03:40):
some weighing upwards of one hundred pounds. Big Eye might
be running also, and they can easily top two hundred pounds.
Both make good fighting and good eating. But what Storm
really wants this trip is a marlin trophy class. White
marlins can easily top one hundred and fifty pounds, but

(04:01):
the big blues those commonly hit five hundred pounds and up.
Last year, during the Marlin opened down in Ocean City,
one witting team landed a blue marlin that weighed in
excess of one thousand pounds at the helm, staring straight
ahead into the night, ignoring his noisy beer swinging meats,

(04:25):
Storm whistles softly at the mere thought of hooking and
landing a half ton blue marlin. By day, Storm studies data,
reams and reams of data dealing with various drugs his employer,
medi Well, is trying to push through the arduous FDA process.

(04:47):
Since COVID, he has worked out of his small home
office in the basement of his Center Hall Colonial. Occasionally
he escapes this dim cell for business trips to Chicago
and where Mediwell has research labs, but mostly he spends
his sixty plus hour workweeks down in the cellar, not

(05:10):
far from the furnace and the hot water heater. He
makes good money, a couple hundred grand a year, plus
bonuses and stock options. He needs all that money and
more to pay the mortgages on the house and the
beach house, the car payments, the hefty marine payment for

(05:31):
the forty five foot Grady White, and all the expenses
associated with being an upper middle class white guy living
in the affluent verbs with a non working wife and
three daughters, the eldest of whom attends an eighty four
thousand dollars per year university in Boston. Storm tries not

(05:54):
to think about his financial commitments and his domestic responsibilities
here on the water. He knows all that stuff will
become his reality soon enough, in the blink of the
proverbial eye. But for a few hours, he just wants
to escape. He just wants to stare out to see.

(06:16):
He just wants to fish. Fishing, after all, is Storm's passion,
the one thing that gets his blood pumping, the only
thing that he really likes to think about or talk about,
the only thing he really likes to do. But he
knows he can't get too worked up, not with his

(06:37):
less than stellar ticker. A bad ticker took his old
man in his mid fifties now to catch the big fish.
Storm has invested a small fortune on tackle. His mantra
could well be shitty tackle, don't catch big fish. His

(06:58):
main rig is a five foot eight inch Melton Royale
rod in combination with a pen International vstick gold reel
loaded with two hundred yards of eighty pound mono backed
by seven hundred yards of one hundred and thirty pound
braided line. Storm prefers a short rod loaded with backbone

(07:24):
to apply torque and raise worthy predators from the depths.
He uses trolling lures consisting of spreader bars designed to
mimic a school of squid splashing on the surface as
they try to evade predators in comseeas he might put

(07:44):
out three rods rigged with ballyhu to appease the palate
of the more refined species, including the big eye. Oh yeah,
there's no doubt about it. Storm knows how to fish.
He knows what he's doing out here. His crew nods
off the engines drone a low, starless sky above, a

(08:09):
few drops of rain splatter the windshield. Winds out of
the southeast, brisk and gathering strength. An unexpected blow might
well be headed their way, thunder and lightning and high seas.
Storm fears a shitty day of fishing, or worse. He

(08:30):
sighs and tries to keep his mind from running the data,
the goddamn data, and the endless pitoless numbers, always, always, always,
his brain runs the numbers. It's what he does for
a living, after all, what he does in the basement
for hours at a time, He runs the numbers. And

(08:50):
that's the last thing he wants to do out here
on the open ocean, away from everything, away from all
of life's hassles and stresses. But the numbers come anyway,
and there's nothing he can do to stop them. They're
like they're like the fucking bulls running through the streets
of Pamplona. Twelve hundred bucks for the Melton, eight hundred

(09:15):
and fifty bucks for the pen, hundreds more for the
mono and braided lines. Two grand a month, two grand
his bride doesn't even know about for the Grady White
bought used with fifty grand down. But still he'll be
well past seventy before he gets that damn thing paid off.

(09:35):
The slip at the marina, the maintenance, the repairs, the fuel,
the fuel, all that, all that, and Jesus, how often
do I even get out? How often do I get
out here? Yeah, that's not something I want to think about.
Last year, with his mom dying and his oldest heading

(09:56):
off to college, Storm got out just six times. Took
just six trips, six Measley trips, three hundred and sixty
five days in the year, and he got six trips
to the canyon. And this year it's almost the first
of July and this is his first trip, and he
doubts there will be another much before the middle of August.

(10:20):
Work kids, commitments, the data, the numbers, the three girls
to put through school. That's a million bucks. And their weddings.
There's another quarter mill or more work another ten years,
at least maybe twelve, hopefully not more than twelve. Get
the houses paid off and the boat mostly paid off,

(10:43):
and the girls educated and married off. And then and
then finally I'll be able to fish fifty sixty seventy
days a year, many of them out at the canyon
where the big fish room. Where the big fish Room. Yeah, whoa,
what was that? A pain? A pain in his chest,

(11:03):
Probably just heartburn from all those fucking hot dogs he ate.
Back at the marina. Just a couple of nights ago,
Storm was out having beers with some of the local guys.
He was all worked up about the night's trip, talking
a blue streak about being out on the ocean and
maybe hauling in a big blue marlin. And that's when Samson,

(11:26):
a non fisherman, said to everyone standing around the bar,
so let me get the straight Storm. You're gonna spend
a couple grand on fuel, drive all night out into
the middle of the fucking ocean, throw a baited hook overboard,
and then spend all day trying to capture and kill

(11:47):
a giant, free running fish. You don't know and can't see,
and who hasn't done a fucking thing to you or
to those you love. That's your plan, That's what you're
gonna spend your day doing. Samson shit man, quite a talker,
a real yarn spinner. All the guys laughed at his
assessment of Storm's fishing trip, well most of them anyway, now, No,

(12:12):
all of them. They all laughed. Storm remembering, he sighs,
and he ignores that pain in his chest and thinks
about the tax man. Not the taxman who takes a
large chunk of his hard earned wages, but the taxman
of the sea, the shark, the tigers and the macOS,

(12:36):
and the Atlantic black tips who appear out of nowhere
and circle the big blue marlin you've been battling for hours,
and just seconds before you are about to finally land
that thousand pound blue marlin and haul him aboard, the
sea churns, the taxman strikes, and the water turns blood

(12:56):
red as your catch of a lifetime gets ripped to
shreds by a shiver of hungry primordial sharks. Hey, thanks
for listening to this original audio presentation of the deep

(13:20):
sea Fishermen narrated as always by the author. If you
enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds to rate, review,
and subscribe to this podcast, and then go to Thomas
William Simpson dot com for additional information about the author
and to view his extensive canon. The ten Minute Storyteller

(13:44):
is produced by Andrew Buglisi and Josh Klani and is
part of the Elvis Duran Podcast Network in partnership with
iHeart Productions. So until next time, this is Bill Simpson,
Your Minute Storyteller.