Sweet Revenge

A few summers ago, I received a phone call from one of the concierges at a local hotel that sell my charters. It turned out that an attorney from Chicago was asking about fishing for himself and family. After we confirmed the charter and talked for a while, he told me that his two boys were the ones that really wanted to fish and his wife would be along for the ride. The day of the charter came and as we left the harbor the crew and I were talking about the boys and both came to the conclusion that the youngest boy was just going to be to young for a large fish. We trolled towards an area that we call "Red Hill" and saw ahi feeding on small bait. On our first pass, we hooked up and the father jumped into the fighting chair, and after a tug a war that lasted about 45 minutes, we had our first ahi (yellow fin tuna) up to the boat. The fish was a little over a hundred pounds and all aboard were happy, but now we need another fish. The tuna were still in the area and after a while we saw them come up again. On that pass, we hooked another ahi and the older of the two boys got in the chair. He had a fish on that was bigger than he was!!! And, after about an hour we had another ahi in the box. Now, the other little boy did not quite understand why he hadn't caught a fish. He must have been about seven or eight years old, and at that age they just don't seem to have a lot of patience. About every two minutes he had made a trip around the boat, and about every three minutes he was up on the bridge asking me where was his fish. About the 20th time of this routine, we finally hooked up on a marlin! And, the little guy got into the fighting chair (with us knowing that we didn't stand a chance of a snow ball in you know where of landing that fish). But he was in the chair, and the crew was behind the chair holding him in, so that he wouldn't be pulled onto the deck of the boat. The father was helping him crank the reel, and his brother was helping him hold up the rod. About that time, (and after five or six jumps from the fish), the hook came out of the marlin and this little guy was crushed! They came back a couple of years later bound and determined to catch that boy a fish. I was also so determined, that we fished for fifteen hours on that trip, but to no avail. When that little guy got off the boat he was crying, and so was the Captain. They came back again this past summer, and I was amazed at how much he had grown. Now keep in mind, that this little boy has had to look at those 2 mounted ahi for four years. And who knows how many times his brother has had a little fun teasing him about it…I'm sure we have all been there. He came back for revenge! The first day, I wasn't able to take them fishing, so I put them on another boat. They didn't catch anything. I talked to the father, and he told that although they really enjoyed the other boat, they really wanted to fish with me, on my boat. So we set up another charter. I fished hard for about six hours without any "action". I was scared that it was going to turn into another one of those days. Finally, I asked the father to come up on the bridge so we could talk. I told him there were a lot of ono and mahi mahi near shore, if they wanted to finish out the day that way. He told me that he would talk to the boy about it. He came back a short time later, telling me that his boy wanted a big fish...now the pressure on me was really building. A little while later, we finally hooked up (thank you Jesus), and now all we had to worry about was the hook pulling loose. The boy was strong, and he had the fish up to the boat in about thirty minutes. Since we had never seen the fish, we guessing that it was an ahi, and sure enough it was. And, it was bigger than the other two that had been caught by his Dad and older brother on their very first charter. (I was probably as proud of that fish as any fish that I had ever caught.) We took the fish in and cut that fish up for food. I made sure that they had plenty of sashimi to take with them, as they were leaving for Maui. I got a phone call from them telling them that it was the best fish they ever tasted! It was along time coming but revenge is sweet. Capt. Bob