Conquering the blues
I know, I know. This column’s title might have you worried that I am heading over the ledge, but fear not. Simply put, I am just hoping it might capture your attention and get you to read what is going through my head as I sit and write. I am not saying I never experience the blues, but in this case, the “blues” is what you might call a contronym. If you do not know what a contronym is, Google it.
Honestly, about the only time I get the blues is during the winter months, and with it comes a recurring dream that has returned year after year since I was in my early teens. In that dream, I am aboard Hilton Head’s pioneer charter boat, the Buddy II, with my dad and a couple of his buddies marlin fishing off Hilton Head. The ocean is slick calm, and the water is a blue that is hard to describe.
Facing out the back of the boat, my eyes are glued to a rigged Spanish mackerel skittering along the surface as we troll when, seemingly out of nowhere, a massive marlin rises beneath the mackerel and inhales it. We did catch it, but what made this such a recurring dream for all these years was the brilliant blue water and the precise instant that fish came up. Even now, I can close my eyes and see that moment perfectly, frame by frame.
So here is where “the blues” becomes a contronym. All winter long, I get pretty blue waiting for the water to warm enough for me to make that first run out to the vibrant blue waters of the Gulf Stream, around 60 miles offshore. The first 15 or so miles are the silty water you see at the beach. Then the water turns a clear green for the remaining 40 or so miles until you cross into the Gulf Stream, where the water is blue as blue can be.
At that instant, all those winter blues vanish as if by magic. It truly is what I live for, and thanks to my dad letting me catch my first billfish at age 7, that blue water is, and always will be, my magic potion.
Once again, that blue water conquered my blues a little more than a week ago when I got a call from my friend Bill Busch, a Wexford resident. Having caught just about every pelagic species, one has especially captured my heart. Dolphin, mahi-mahi, dorado, whatever you call them, are right up there in my book.
Splattered with a palette of colors like a Jackson Pollock painting, they rush in to trolled baits with their dorsal fins raised, zigging and zagging until they finally commit. The best part is that the water is such a clear blue that, if you are paying attention to the baits, you can see every second of a dolphin’s mad rush.
Accompanying Bill and me aboard were my longtime fishing partner Dan Cornell and Eric Nguyen, owner of a nail salon in Port Royal Plaza. When we finally reached the stream, it was not just blue. It was a deep cobalt blue.
Like so many pelagic fish, dolphin love any kind of structure. A floating log, a discarded bucket, and best of all, a Sargasso weed line. Find that and you will find dolphin lurking beneath it. Lucky for us, we found just such a weed line, plus huge free-floating patches of weed everywhere.
Acting as a nursery of sorts, all kinds of tasty critters hide in that weed, and being one of the fastest-growing fish in the ocean, dolphin will eat just about anything. And flying fish? They were everywhere. At times, the boat would spook them and 100 would take off at once. I never get tired of watching them launch and glide hundreds of yards after one tail beat.
It did not take long before we landed the first dolphin, and from that point on, the action was fairly steady and the fish were larger than normal. I rarely reel in fish out there, preferring instead to rig baits and yell instructions at anglers, but that is just me.
The last dolphin of the day was a beast, with Bill on the reel. As he finally got it within 20 yards of the stern, that bull dolphin looked like a huge bright green-and-yellow sheet of plywood beneath the water.
That day took my blues away, and getting my first taste of blue water this year most definitely has me in the pink.
Collins Doughtie is a 60-year resident of the Lowcountry, is a sportsman, graphic artist, and lover of nature. collinsdoughtie@icloud.com.
