And the winner was crowned

We get very few weekends to call our own because of the nature of what we do. Usually, in order to get a weekend, we have to ignore some things we just don’t want to, but need to so we can have a weekend.

Wow, say that three times fast, and then think about it. Headache time.

But last weekend, for Father’s Day, Holly made a deal to get me in the Cudjoe Gardens Dolphin Tournament.

I hitched a ride on the Don’t Panic out of Dolphin Marina with Captain Steve (not me), Lance, Ronnie, Vernon, Lance Jr., Sandy, Dave, Saulo, Kris and me. Yep, we had a boat full.

During Saturday we landed a few nice dolphin, some smaller ones, and a barracuda. Yep, me.

Sunday was a better day as we reeled in a half dozen or so mid-range dolphin in the 20-pound category. Either way, it was a nice day with some good luck.

But, I believe our boat has the best fish story of the month. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

Ronnie, who spent much of his time acting as mate and doing a great job of it, had just reeled in a nice dolphin, somewhere in the 20-pound range. The captain gaffed the fish and pulled it over the transom into the boat.

He had a good grip on it, so they tried to get the lure out while the fish was still hanging there. The lure was imbedded, and the fish was slightly pissed off, so it was an exercise in futility to try and remove the hook from the fish at that particular moment.

On that boat, for that tournament, anglers drew numbers. Number one grabbed the first strike, number two the second, and so on and so on. It was an organized system. And when you weren’t the angler, you were one of the mates.

The mates pulled extra lines from the water, re-baited, manned the fish box for the catch, drank water, sunned, slept, ate snacks, gabbed, or anything else one does while waiting for fish to grab a line.

So Ronnie caught the fish, it was firmly gaffed and hauled in. The hook wouldn’t come loose easily so the fish was tossed INTO the cooler and the gaff pulled. When the fish settled down, the hook would be removed.

The particular mate manning the fish box at that particular time had a momentary lapse of concentration and didn’t close the lid quite quickly enough.

The fish had the opportunity it needed and jumped out of the fish box. Ronnie, seeing his just-completed catch ready to return from whence it had come, reached out and grabbed the flopping, now flying, fish around the middle in a bear hug.

The fact that he caught the fish at all was amazing. The fact that he held on to the fish was nigh unbelievable. But he did.

He gave it his best effort to jam the wriggling fish back into the fish box, but the fish was having none of it and strained toward the water.

At one point, both Ronnie and fish were actually leaned out over the water, the human’s feet planted firmly on the deck to keep both of them from going swimming.

When the fish, amazed as we were I’m sure, discovered it couldn’t get loose, it decided to throw itself back into the boat hoping to hit the deck free and flop out I guess.

But Ronnie was having none of that. As the fish flipped into the boat, Ronnie performed a nearly perfect pirouette, kept his grip and body slammed the recalcitrant dolphin to the deck ala WWF Superstar-style.

By the time most of us realized the struggle was going on, the fish was pinned to the deck, Ronnie was camped on top of it, and we were picking our jaws up off the deck, now splattered with salt water and fish blood.

Ronnie slowly lifted himself off the fish, picked it up by the tail, gave it a final good shake and slammed it into the fish box.

The mate manning the fish box remembered to shut the lid this time.

Ronnie wiped his face, brushed off his scaly shirt, wiped his hands, high-fived most of the rest of the crew, and because there was no booze allowed on board popped a bottle of water and slugged it back.

Once we had all the lines back in the water and the next angler was on deck, Captain Steve came down the ladder and announced what we had all missed during the dolphin-wrestling exhibition.

It seems as though we had all forgotten, particularly our champion fish-tosser, that the hook was still in the fish. Even if it had gone over the side, it still belonged to us.

Ah well. The show was amazing.

And I think I had a piece of that wrestling fish for dinner Monday night.

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