dragonslayer (CA)

 The Banana Boat – by Ari Vineberg



Rumor had it that the Bluefish and Stripers were running thick off the New England coastline and by all accounts were eminently catchable. It was on the Friday afternoon prior to our departure from Hampton Beach that I had decided to go out on the Royal Sea Star, a party boat with a reputation of always being able to locate these predictable yet highly migratory fish.

The ship, a fifty foot barnacle encrusted barge that had been converted to a fishing vessel which could normally accommodate around sixty people, had only ten fishermen aboard. In the past few days, the water temperature and winds had been shifting constantly and the fishing had been sporadic at best. In fact, the hand painted signs outside the harbor bait shops that read Bluefish/Stripers in the morning had been changed to read Mackerel/Pollack in the afternoon. After being granted permission by our captain to embark on the boat, our skipper, a small sunburned chap named Paul, began with the most infamous disclaimer of all charter captains. In a somewhat subdued tone, he explained what was going on with the fishing and that he would do his best to get us into the schools of blues and stripers – but that there were no guarantees or money back. The plan was to go for mackerels first and then keep in close contact with the activities of the other fishing boats in the vicinity.

The first mate, Jeff, a lanky middle-aged hippie from San Diego, worked as a fishing guide in the summer and then built tall ships during the winter months down on the West Coast. Jeff nervously explained the maritime safety code, the general safety rules of the boat, location of life preservers and rafts, and a rundown on fishing tactics and baits to be employed. And then came one of the strangest comments ever heard on a fishing boat. Not the usual admonitions of too much alcohol, or that drugs were illegal at sea as well, and that all rules of law governing the mainland were indeed still in effect on the boat. No it was something else. Jeff warned everyone, in the most serious tone a deadhead can muster, that under absolutely no circumstance would anyone be allowed to bring a banana onboard. A banana, he explained, was a bad omen, a portent of piscatorial perdition, a sign from above that the fish would not be biting on this day. Everyone carrying a banana was to divest themselves of this particularly unfortuitous fruit and was subjected to an inspection of all coolers and lunch bags for before Jeff was satisfied the boat was clean and gave the signal to shove off. The boat was unmoored from the aging wooden dock and began to motor towards the mouth of the Piscataqua River, the second fastest flowing tidal river in North America. A few smaller boats were anchored in the strong tidal current at the inlet, working their baits in the strong riffles produced by the flow. As we passed a small outboard with three elderly gentlemen sitting on lawn chairs with beers in their hands, one of the men hoisted a stringer out of the water with a pair of thirty- pound stripers.

In fairly rough seas, Captain Paul brought us past the riptide, about five miles offshore, to his first set of GPS co-ordinates on his updated chart of offshore structure. We began by fishing “The Hump” with mackerel jigs, basically a lead tear on a saltwater hook, while Jeff rigged up the big rods, baited with either small mackerel or herring. The setup was simple. The baits were set either a few feet off bottom or mid-range to bottom depending on he markings of the fish finder. Captain Paul figured that the mackerel were suspended around the twenty-five to thirty-five feet mark, which meant that the hungry stripers and blues would not be far behind.

A few mackerel were quickly boated and Jeff rigged a “livie” up on a balloon rig, a saltwater version of bobber fishing, left to trail a short distance behind the boat. It wasn’t long before the balloon disappeared and the rod buckled violently in the holder. Jeff grabbed the rod and set the hook. The rod was bent in a deep arc and throbbed with the weight of a heavy fish. He handed the rod to a woman from South Carolina who was visiting with her son and she held tight as the fish peeled line off the level wind reel. The fish, however, knew his territory well and ran the line through one of the hundreds of lobster traps on the ocean floor. A few minutes later another reel started whining but then broke off before anyone could reach the rod. The bait was reeled in, sliced neatly in half, as though done with surgical precision, only the head remaining on the hook. Captain Paul muttered “Bluefish” on the loudspeaker, as one of the mates re-rigged the line with another live mackerel. Jeff went on to explain that stripers would usually take the bait headfirst, tending to maul it a little bit more. Before he could finish, another rod popped and Chris, a Boston motorcycle gang member with his ten- year old son was into a hefty bluefish. At one point, the fish surged near the boat, a beautiful and wild twenty-five pound fish, and then sounded taking the rod so far down over the gunnel, that it suddenly snapped and sent him tumbling backwards, dropping his rod in the process. The fish, still hooked, ran the rod up the side of the gunwale and into the water before Chris even landed on his rear. Captain Paul shook his head in disbelief. Jeff started to look a little nervous and suddenly began resuming his search for a banana.

The final blow to the morale of the crew of the Royal Sea Star came from none other than Earl, a tobacco-chewing cowboy who was a State employee from Texas visiting his father-in-law, a former Mr. New Hampshire. Earl was little fried from the eighteen or so beers he had consumed but he kept jigging up pollack and mackerel and repeatedly kept asking Captain Paul, in a drawl worthy of anyone from the Lone Star State, what type of fish it was he was catching. Mr New Hampshire didn’t look too impressed with his son-in-law. Captain Paul began to stare intently out to the sea, like Ishmael embarking on his journey, perhaps contemplating the unlucky events of the day, or the ideal final resting-place at the bottom of the ocean floor for Earl who continued to catch fish he could not identify. The tension was palpable.

Jeff finally broke down and addressed the contingent on the loudspeaker: “ Goddamit we are not leaving this boat until the bastard that brought a banana onboard speaks out and comes forward!”