The Encounter by Gary Caputi

THE ENCOUNTER â– by Gary Caputi

She was the ultimate product of evolution, the biggest of her species, prowling the coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico as her kind has done for untold generations.

area around the old, rusting oil production platform had been one of her favorite hunting grounds for many years. She would arrive here in late fall during her annual migrations through this area of the northern Gulf. It was part of a daily circuit she would make during her stay moving from one place to the next in a neverending search for the prey necessary to sustain her massive body.

The metal lattice work of steel that comprised the old platform had come through again, as it had so often in the past. Today it had attracted a school of unusually large blue runners, there to feed on the smaller creatures that make their home around this remote outpost of man-made structure. These were big runners, the kind she preferred; the ones that filled her outsized belly with a minimum of work. She preferred bigger game for just that reason. It was counter-productive

The

12

to expend the energy required to approach and attack a dozen or more small fish when two or three big ones would provide the necessary sustenance with only a fraction of the exertion. It was one of the reasons she had grown so large, well in excess of onehundred pounds, not that she would understand such a concept. She was simply the biggest of her kind and she attained her prodigious size by beating all the odds stacked against a fish in the wild and by becoming a superb huntress.

This simple fact of life wasn’t something she learned in the sense you and I might think. It was a lesson ingrained deep in her very being, the remnant of millions of years of evolution and countless thousands of generations of king mackerel that came before her. Their successes and failures became the feeding strategies that dictate her migratory paths; that put her where the forage is most plentiful; that drive

her to pass on her genetic material to future generations. None of it is part of a conscious thought process, it is all, quite literally, programed in her DNA. She is the culmination of all of her kind that came before, the pinnacle of evolutionary success, a king mackerel of such massive proportions she has no peer.

She has very little of what we call intelligence, she is not a sentient being cognizant of her existence in the way of higher life forms. She is a soft machine with a rudimentary brain programmed to perform life sustaining tasks by her forebears. A killing machine comprised of a powerful, elongated body powered by muscles that allow her to accelerate from an energy-saving cruise to top speed in little more than a heartbeat. A body bristling with an array of control surfaces strategically located to help her zero in on a moving target with unerring accuracy. Guided by large eyes mounted forward on

www.FishSKA.com

her head to provide her with the depth perception that is so critical to a predator, she uses stealth and speed to move through the water like a jet fighter moves through the air. Her lateral line is her radar, her visual acuity the targeting mechanism that locks on to her chosen prey. Her body is wrapped in a sheath of tiny reflective scales that act like a cloak of invisibility and coated with a layer of slime exuded to lubricate her passage through saltwater and protect her from parasites and disease. Her virtual invisibility lets her stalk prey from just outside their range of vision by helping her blend in to the green haze of the water around her. When it’s time to strike she brings her formidable weapons into play, strong jaws and sharp teeth, which snap closed around her target at the exact moment she hits it with all of her weight and speed literally slicing it to shreds in a millisecond.

ANGLER | April 2012

eyes lock on to the target and of Mexico. that she has become a veritable She is prowling near the school take over control of her moveBut she, the old one, the one-inoutcast among her own kind, of blue runners feeling them ments. Her pectoral, pelvic and a-million, hunts alone. She too large to swim through her lateral line, stayanal fins make minute correcis in search of bigger with the ing just far enough away to take “Holy s*#t!!! Did you tions in her trajectory matching game, prey that is smaller advantage of her natural camousee the size of that smoker!” the movements of the target, putmore suitable to members flage, yet close enough to watch ting them on a collision course feed her massive of the them, searching for the right the human with the gaff in his hand that will not be denied. At the body.

She is the clan that target and the optimal moment yelled to the other anglers on the last possible moment she opens aquatic version gather to attack. She lives by hunting boat as he stomped his feet and her mouth exposing her huge, of the cheetah, around and her actions naturally mirror cussed in a rage. jagged teeth and predator and the speed merchant the salt the signals she picks up from her prey come together in a savage of the African Savanna, domes each intended prey. Her 30 seasons explosion as all the power in her and as she patiently awaits November in anticihave molded her into a master body and jaws are transferred to the signs of weakness in the pation of great congregations huntress and today, even though the blue runner’s body, which is same way her feline equivalent of forage fish in this part of the the hunger in her belly is acute, cut cleanly into three pieces. Her watches a herd of antelope, she Gulf. They come together by the she takes her time, awaits her incredible upward momentum senses what she has been waiting tens of thousands, most weighing moment. Younger, less experiforces her from the water in a for, a signal through her lateral 20 to 40 pounds, some exceeding enced members of her clan often leap that takes her ten feet above line. One of the blue runners is 50, all mature king hunt in great packs rushing the surface before splashing back near the surface struggling, sendmackerel, but in and breaking up “That down with her mouth full of raw, ing out low frequency vibrations all small by tightly schooled thing was over six feet still twitching flesh. that set off a sequence of events comparibaitfish thereby long for cryin’ out loud,” said the Something was wrong. Terribly as old as the ocean itself and just son. She creating tarone holding the rod in total disbelief. wrong! She felt it from the as inescapable. The muscles in joins gets for othmoment she re-entered the water. her flanks flex as her dorsal fin is ers in the “That was the biggest king I’ve ever heard with There was a pressure on her that retracted flat along the top of her them group, but she of let alone seen. Oh man, I can’t bewas not there before, a force trybody to reduce drag. She becomes on the does not hunt lieve we lost it. Damn, damn, ing to slow her down, to impede a biologic missile sleek and ready spawning in a pack. She is damn!” her freedom of movement, the to blast off. With a powerful kick ground each the apex predator very uninhibited mobility that of her massive tail she explodes season, but otherof her kind and she hunts defines her being, and she reacts from the slow cruise she wise remains apart. They school alone using the methods of a lone in the only way she employees while together, bands of long, silver fish hunter.

“It was bigger knows how, pensively armed with speed and a mouth The runners she watches are to flee. She awaiting filled with razor sharp teeth that tightly schooled a natural defense than any wahoo I’ve ever puts every the sigmake them formidable predaagainst predators that makes it caught,” chimed in the one at the helm. ounce of nal to tors, marauders ready to turn the difficult to single out one target.

“That thing had to weigh over a hundred strength a full water red with the blood of the As they swim close together they pounds!

That fish would have won the Nationals her body speed hapless baitfish that are destined open and close ranks, shift posiall by itself, no second day fish needed. I thought can attack by the irresistible forces of nature tions within the pod, swirling muster run to migrate through this killing and flowing with such coordiyou had the gaff on it? How are we going to into drivthat field. They will swim through the nated ease that the school almost tell them what happened back at ing her tail reduces assembled gauntlet of voracious becomes a single life form too big the weigh-in?" harder and faster the distance ravagers capable of shredding to challenge. She cruises effortin a massive rush of between her and them into small pieces, consumlessly well away from and below power that sees her achieve full her struggling target so quickly ing their flesh so they too can the school, keeping her distance speed and hold it for far longer the runner won’t see her or even survive to grow and reproduce. from the platform’s rusty metal than she is usually capable, but sense her approach until it’s too Predator and prey, locked in an legs that extended from the surthe pressure remains. Adrenaline late to react. ancient dance for survival played face to the ocean floor 120 feet is pulsing through her blood As she closes the distance her out on the vast stage of the Gulf below. She remains all but invisistream to aid her flight from ble, her camouflage only fails her this unseen force. Something if she rises too close to the surunnatural and hard is pulling at face and allows the sun to shine the corner of her mouth, attemptoff her mirrored flanks, so she ing to slow her further, draining stays deep watching and waiting her strength and sapping her for that one fish out of the many will. She keeps up her charge for hundreds in the school that is a another hundred yards strainlittle older, a little slower, swiming her muscles, burning calorie ming with an uneven gait that reserves, and then another hunsignals injury or weakness. She dred and another. She cannot has mastered the intricacies of keep up this speed for long before the hunt and she avoids the pither muscles begin to weaken with falls as a matter of course. After the buildup of lactic acid for they all, she is one in a million. The were designed for the bursts of ultimate predator. The ultimate speed she used to hunt, not sussurvivor! tained peak performance in a bid In fact she is probably one in to escape. Yet she runs on driving a hundred million, the rarest of her body to the very limits of her the rare, a king mackerel so large April 2012 | ANGLER

www.FishSKA.com

13

stamina for this is a fight for survival.

As she slows she becomes aware of a sound behind her, moving closer to her as she weakens, a vibration in the water that is not natural to her surroundings. She pushes her body yet again, frantic in the realization that she is no longer in control of herself, yet the pressure does not abate. The table has been turned and she is no longer the predator, but the prey.

She turns and runs in the opposite direction and the pressure is

gone momentarily until she reaches the end of the tether once again and the pressure that is inexorably taxing her reserves returns. She is at the point of near exhaustion and that sound, that unnatural vibration is drawing closer still.

It merges with a massive shadow created by the unseen predator on the surface above her and in a moment of desperation she rushes the water’s surface, shakes her mighty head and turns again.

This time the metallic tether crosses her snout and she snaps her jaws lashing out at it. The thin metal line falls between two sharp teeth and bends as she turns and rises to the surface thrashing one last time. With a

final effort she lunges and it breaks, the pressure against her is gone! She lies motionless on the surface for a split second in the shadow of the boat floating nearby, then kicks her tail weakly and begins to descend toward the bottom where she will sulk trying to regain her strength before an even larger predator, a hammerhead or mako, finds her in this weakened state and makes her their meal. After all it is the way of nature, the weak fall prey to the strong and the predator can easily become the prey. It is the credo that she has lived her entire

SKA Appears Before SAFMC on Kingfish Issue!

On Tuesday, March 6th Jack Holmes and Bob Flocken attended the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting at the request of the council. It was Jack’s responsibility to address the council in rebuttal to their proposed plan to disallow the sale of kingfish weighed at kingfish tournaments.

Jack Holmes addressed the council at 1:30 regarding the sale of king mackerel by tournaments with the vast majority of the events donating the proceeds to local charities. In the past, tournament directors would get the local seafood purveyor to take the fish who would, in turn, write a check to the event’s charity or philanthropic organization. If the Council ends this practice and cracks down on the processor, this is over and charities will suffer. Fish will either have to be discarded or given back to the captain.

“I’ve expected this to happen,” said Jack. “I was ready with statistics, just had to put my ducks in a row and make the presentation. I began in the early days of the SKA keeping records on what each event scaled assuming that it was the same amount that went to the fish purveyor.”

Jack had the stats and a plan to make it legal for charity driven events to sell their fish. Plus the tournaments as a whole would have their own quota that gives fishery managers valuable data.

“I had taken the time to talk to some of the council members before the hearing and found some who were already in favor on what I was proposing,” Jack added.

Jack asked the Council to issue a quota of 500,000 pounds because he knows who our association 14

tournaments are and what we catch and scale. But there are other events that have king mackerel on their species list, which have not reported data on poundage that comes to the scale or whether they are charity driven or not. The quota could go up or down in following years depending on their numbers. The past two years have produced a total catch of 57,000 plus pounds each year. Some of these fish were not sold.

This could be very helpful in providing extra data for resource managers and give relief to charity driven events especially in South Carolina. Charity tournaments have given over a million dollars a year to local charities.

Once this is voted on, and hopefully approved, there still will be some loose ends. Who will be responsible for giving the agency sale figures? The tournament or purveyor? What other info do they need, like tournament participation, proof of the charities receiving the monies, and dollar amounts?

This will be very beneficial to the events because they will be no longer be working in the dark and in violation of the law. Kingfish purveyors will no longer officially get the credit for writing the check to the charity or benefit from a tax exemption.

Tournaments without a charity will probably be in conflict, but one step at a time. We also have to see how, or if, the Council defines a charity or philanthropic organization. One thing’s for sure, he’ll be ready to go back to the Council if needed.

Much thanks to the King and Spanish Mackerel members who stayed on top of this issue and brought it to the forefront. ■ www.FishSKA.com

life. That has sustained her for all these seasons and that now could be her end! ■ Gary Caputi is an awardwinning outdoor writer and photographer whose work has been featured in national fishing and boating magazines for over 30 years. He is an avid saltwater angler and recreational fishing activist who has been involved in conservation and fisheries management issues for almost as long as he has been writing. His work has appeared regularly in Angler magazine since 2001.

Watch the Weigh-in Live!

NBOA GULF COAST OPEN from Sarasota, Florida brought to you by

www.FishSKA.com Saturday, May 5 beginning at 3pm

ANGLER | April 2012