The Greatest Tuna Fight of All Time

This story, “The Day Alfandre Fought Geronimo,” appeared within the April 1964 difficulty of Outside Life.

Within the salty village of Montauk, on the jap tip of Lengthy Island, New York, they nonetheless name Harry Alfandre the unluckiest fisherman who ever lived. Harry was a lean, angular man who had the nostril of a beagle for fish, particularly tuna. Throughout his days at Montauk, he stirred up storms of pleasure and remark by big-city rod and gun columnists.

It was Harry who found the well-known “Rosie’s Ledge” giant-tuna grounds and instigated what amounted to a revolution amongst East Coast big-game fishermen. But Alfandre himself by no means managed to land one of many nice, finned furies that grew to become synonymous along with his identify. However he tried. Oh, how he tried.

Two weeks earlier than Labor Day in the summertime of 1949, Einar Randrup, proprietor of the business fishing dragger Marion H., got here into Montauk with a really giant bluefin tuna. He had harpooned it someplace east of Fisher’s Island. Harry Alfandre noticed the fish, talked with Randrup, and misplaced an evening’s sleep mulling over what he’d realized.

The subsequent day Harry took Capt. Clancy Pitts, a neighborhood constitution skipper, and the crew of the Rosie, his personal small fishing cruiser, and shoved off throughout Block Island Sound for Fisher’s Island. With Harry’s 15-year-old son Ronald and nephews Howard Alfandre and Sandy Hacker, they had been 5. After a number of hours of scouting, they’d discovered no tuna. A lobsterman they met informed them the place tuna had been sighted the day earlier than.

Once they reached the spot, a few miles south of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, enormous tuna had been breaking everywhere. 4 draggers had been dashing about, attempting to harpoon the fish. One lastly received an iron right into a tuna. Harry watched and received an thought.

The subsequent day they returned to the spot off Watch Hill, trolling squid and mackerel baits among the many rioting tuna. They hooked two giant ones, which they promptly misplaced to damaged traces. That night, again on the Montauk Yacht Club, Alfandre informed among the native guides what he’d seen. They mentioned he was off his rocker as a result of “Tuna don’t develop that huge in these waters.”

The third day Harry misplaced one other fish. Once they received dwelling, drained and disgusted, they discovered Capt. Don Gross of the constitution boat Capt. Don getting ready to sail the next morning for the large ones. Don Gross knew deal with huge bluefins, and his consumer was none apart from the then Mrs. Dan Topping, spouse of the co-owner of the New York Yankees and no imply fisherwoman.

Historical past data that Mrs. Topping caught extra lifeless weight of tuna within the subsequent 4 days than your entire fleet of the U.S. Atlantic Tuna Event, which occurred to be fishing on the identical time on the Mud Gap of Hudson Canyon, off New York harbor. The fuss the press kicked up over Harry’s discovery of the fabulous new tuna grounds and Mrs. Topping’s eye-popping catches resounded from Maine to Florida. In a lyric column within the New York Journal-American, the late Jack Brawley dubbed the spot off Watch Hill “Rosie’s Ledge,” after Alfandre and his little white boat Rosie. The identify caught.

Native guides rapidly stop scoffing and joined the frenzy to reap the large fish. Frank Tuma Jr., skipper of the Gannet, introduced in seven huge ones. Don Gross racked up a fair dozen, together with the season’s largest, a 779-pounder caught by New York sportsman Robert Manger. Captains Ralph Pitts, Bob Tuma, Carl Darenburg, and George Verity, spark plugs of the Montauk constitution fleet, helped account for the 25 large tuna that had been weighed in on the Montauk Yacht Membership.

Among the many tuna at Rosie’s Ledge was one monster of us began calling Geronimo. He confirmed himself often in chum slicks, at all times far again from the baited hooks. When he joined different tuna of their spectacular surface-feeding, his mighty tail swept just like the black scythe of Father Time among the many sickle-blade tails of lesser fish. Males guessed his weight at between half and three quarters of a ton.

Harry Alfandre noticed and coveted Geronimo. He lay awake nights considering of how to hook the elusive monster. However luck was not with him. When summer season was over, the Rosie’s rating was excessive on damaged traces and fractured rods however nonetheless zero on huge tuna within the boat. Nonetheless, Harry was already planning for the following season, nursing the germ of a radical and thrilling thought.

Because the summer season of 1950 started, Russ MacGrotty infected tuna-season hopes by his early seize of a 409-pounder at Rosie’s Ledge. Tuna guides and anglers flocked to Montauk because the fishing picked up. Chissie Farrington broke her personal girls’s world file with a 674-pounder caught on 24-thread sort out.

Then got here the electrifying information that outdated Geronimo, grown even greater and extra cautious, was again. This was all Harry Alfandre wanted to listen to. He had refurbished the Rosie, purchased new sort out, and employed quiet, succesful Oscar Rodge as skipper. An old-time Montauker, Oscar had an unshakable Scandinavian religion that something the crew of the Rosie got down to do, it might accomplish. Oscar had constructed Harry a 14-foot rowing sharpie and positioned in its bow a cut-down fishing chair. Alfandre’s new plan was to attempt to catch large tuna from the sharpie within the method of the old-time whalers’ Nantucket sleigh-ride, preventing the fish from the chair within the sharpie with rod and reel. Folks scoffed, however to not his face.

Folks had realized that Harry’s vinegary tongue might marinate those that tried to twit him. Even his spouse Rose, for whom the Rosie was named, mentioned nothing.

Then got here the fateful day, Sunday, August 13. The climate was ultimate for tuna fishing, and a protracted file of sport-fishing boats roared from Montauk towards Rosie’s Ledge, 12 miles throughout the Sound. The Rosie, towing her sharpie, wallowed within the wakes of extra highly effective and dashing cruisers. Many of the fleet was already anchored and chumming when the small, white boat arrived and planted her mud hook.

The artwork of chumming consists of doling overboard a skinny soup of floor menhaden combined with sea water and laced with chunks of minimize whiting or menhaden. It’s a messy and sometimes smelly course of, however it does appeal to huge tuna. Alfandre positioned the heavy fiberglass rod with its 14/0 reel stuffed with 54-thread line in one of many cockpit rod holders. He hooked on a 15-foot cable chief, baited the 13/0 Sobey hook with a complete, recent whiting, and drifted the bait deep behind the boat, tending the road by hand. The others, Ronnie, Howard, and Oscar, minimize bait or dipped chum.

Out of the blue a motor coughed to life down the lengthy line of anchored boats and one of many chumming vessels slipped its buoyed anchor cable, dashing off in circles, preventing a freshly hooked large tuna.

“Look ahead to fish in our chum slick,” Alfandre warned his crew, figuring out that the place one huge tuna strikes, many extra could also be feeding.

Then he felt an extremely heavy weight on his fishing line. He had put the bait down 60 ft beneath the floor, hoping for a big fish. He stripped a fathom of the fishing line from the rod and reel, dumping the slack into the water so the fish would have unfastened line to swallow the bait. When the road got here tight once more he yanked on it as arduous as he might with each fingers to set the large hook.

“I’ve one on!” he yelled as he grabbed up the large rod.

They managed to get him aboard the sharpie and into the chair with out upsetting the smaller boat. Oscar tumbled in after him, releasing the road that held the sharpie to the Rosie’s facet. Grabbing up a steering oar, Oscar dug water to swing the small boat’s bow after the fish as Harry jammed his calloused thumb down the star-drag wheel to extend the stress.

The rod bucked and cracked. Alfandre shouted. Line whistled out via the guides. Oscar paddled frantically, cursing round his cud of minimize plug. The boat began to skim over the water, towed by the hooked fish. A long way forward the tuna boiled on the floor. Harry and Oscar caught a glimpse of an excellent, acquainted, scythe tail.

“Struggling catfish, we’ve hooked Geronimo!” Alfandre shouted.

The sharpie raced via the anchored fleet, spray flying. Harry hung onto the rod with one hand, flailing his fishing cap back and forth in his pleasure, like a jockey urging on a reluctant bangtail.

“Outa our method!” he bellowed on the startled occupants of Gene Goble’s resplendent Fishangri-La. The tuna took them whizzing beneath the bigger boat’s bow.

The sharpie splattered via the gathered boats like an outboard racer that had bucked off its driver. Motors roared into life as skippers all of the sudden determined to desert anchor traces somewhat than danger a ramming from the seemingly jet-propelled skiff and its two wild-eyed occupants.

“Can’t you steer this fish outa the fleet?” Alfandre shouted over his shoulder on the drenched, blaspheming Oscar.

One way or the other, Oscar managed to shoehorn the sharpie via the mob of boats with out scraping paint or chafing the fish line on an anchor warp. Lastly, they had been away from the fleet and out in open water. Oscar heaved a sigh of reliet, however Harry noticed recent hazard.

“Flip the fish again inshore!” he howled at Oscar. “He’s taking out to sea at higher than ten knots!”

By cramping the boat arduous to at least one facet of the tuna’s wake, Oscar discovered he might steer Geronimo again within the common course of Rosie’s Ledge and the chumming fleet.

“Don’t let him drag us again into these boats!” Harry screamed.

“Want you’d make up your thoughts,” Oscar grumbled, wiping tobacco juice and salt spray from his chin.

In the meantime, the Rosie and one other fishing cruiser, the Barracuda, skipped by younger Bobby Darenburg of Montauk, had been hovering, close to, anxious to render assist, however afraid to come back too shut. The combat between the tuna and the 2 males within the sharpie settled all the way down to a gut-wrenching slugging match that circled, stopped, began, and zigzagged simply exterior the fleet.

As soon as Geronimo sounded and lay doggo, gathering energy. “Gotta get him shifting,” Harry muttered, yanking strongly on the fish with the heavy rod His drawback was a particular one. A well-handled energy boat can chase and hound a hooked large tuna into making run after run, burning up its provide of physique oxygen quicker than this very important ingredient might be changed by water flowing over the gills.

Ultimately, the fish might be pushed to the purpose of full collapse. That is the key of these startlingly swift victories over enormous tuna that mystify so many landlubbers. However Harry and Oscar had no motor with which to chase Geronimo.

All Harry might do was to goad the fish into making oxygen-burning runs by banging at him with the rod beneath heavy line strain, then rapidly releasing the drag strain to idiot the fish into considering it was free.

It was back-breaking work. Blisters broke on Harry’s fingers. He and Oscar had been soaked with sweat and salt water. They had been dying for a drink. The sharpie wanted bailing. At odd moments Oscar flung out a scoop or two of water, however more often than not he had to focus on steering and shifting his weight to forestall a capsize.

Eventually the fish confirmed indicators of weakening. Alfandre elevated drag strain and commenced to muscle within the final 50 yards of line. He had actually to haul the boat up behind and eventually on high of the tiring tuna because it cruised slowly alongside, just a few ft beneath the floor. Oscar tried paddling, however it didn’t assist a lot. The outermost 15 ft of the road was spliced double as gamefish guidelines permit. When Harry received two turns of this double line on the reel spool he clamped down on the drag strain to the utmost. The Rosie and the Barracuda cautiously got here nearer.

Then they noticed how huge the fish was. “His tail’s beneath the stem of the sharpie,” Oscar known as out.

“His head’s two ft past the bow,” Alfandre marveled. “He’s longer than the sharpie!”

Slowly the fish rose to the floor. Harry winched within the final of the double line till the stainless-steel snap-swivel connecting the road to the cable chief touched the rod tip. Dropping the rod, he grabbed the chief and hauled the skiff towards the wallowing fish. Oscar shoved the flying gaff at him. Holding the chief with one hand, Harry made a robust swipe and drove the hook of the flying gaff into Geronimo’s jaw.

He separated the stout ash gaff deal with from the removable hook and hauled tight the half-inch manila rope that was spliced to the gaff hook. The Barracuda had backed near them and Oscar threw the free finish of the gaff rope to Bobby Darenburg, ho haul within the slack and took two fast turns round one of many boat’s after bitts.

“He’s ours!” Harry croaked triumphantly, selecting up the rod to get it from underfoot.

Then Geronimo got here to life, showering the 2 boats and the folks in them with sheets of spray from his nice, slashing tail. Down he plunged, snapping the gaff rope like string. Bobby Darenburg stood within the stem of his boat, too surprised even to select up the damaged finish of the gaff line that hung over the transom.

“He’ll dump us over!” screamed Alfandre, staggering beneath the load of the fish on his rod.

Oscar scrambled simply in time to forestall a capsize as Harry received the reel drag launched so the fish might take out line. Once they had themselves and the sharpie beneath management, they had been again the place they had been earlier than the gaffing, however minus the gaff and with the boat half stuffed with water.

“What’ll we do now?” requested Oscar.

“Bail out the water, then tire him out and gaff him once more,” mentioned Alfandre. “What else is there to do?”

Wounded by the swallowed hook and the gaff in his jaw, Geronimo couldn’t final without end. Harry goaded him into a few runs, however the outdated steam was not there. Lastly the fish was again cruising slowly beneath the floor, setting its fins towards the pull of the road. Harry might achieve no extra line. They’d reached a stalemate. The splice of the close to finish of the double line was nonetheless two ft beneath water.

Geronimo’s blood stained the water. Harry rested, panting, his arms aching. If he might simply get within the final couple of fathoms of single line and put two turns of double line on the reel, he would be capable of apply sufficient strain to boost the large fish to the floor. Each the Rosie and the Barracuda had been standing by to go them a recent gaff. He tried as soon as extra to boost the fish a bit and failed. Black spots danced within the backs of his eyeballs with every pounding pulse. He had been quick to the tuna for greater than three hours, and he didn’t know the way for much longer he might sustain the strain.

The top got here with a surprising suddenness. The recent solar, burning down on the drying linen line simply past the rod’s tip, induced the fibers to lose a few of their wet-test energy. Harry took a deep breath and tried to raise the fish, making use of just a few additional kilos of strain. There was a pointy snap as the road paned. Harry lurched backward out of the fishing chair. Oscar lunged to catch him.

Once they regained their ft they might see the damaged finish of the white fishing line snaking slowly into the depths as Geronimo’s mighty, dying bulk sank away from them.

Numbly they let Ronnie and Howard assist them again into the Rosie’s cockpit. Nobody spoke.

The Rosie continued to fish for giant tuna at Rosie’s Ledge and Harry was typically within the sharpie, however there was at all times another person behind the large rod. Alfandre’s zest for rod-handling was gradual to return.

Stan Smith of the New York Information hooked a 10-foot shark fishing from the sharpie with Harry on the steering oar. Requested if he had enjoyable, Stan replied, “Enjoyable? It was the second closest factor to suicide.”

Guessing at Geronimo’s dimension, good tuna males estimated his size at 14 to 16 ft. He actually was longer than the 14-foot sharpie. For fish caught with rod and reel, the current world-record bluefin is a Nova Scotia 977-pounder. It measured not fairly 10 ft lengthy. A 1,200-pounder introduced into Block Island in 1956 by a swordfisherman was in need of 12 ft. Utilizing these measurements as tough guides, it’s protected to say Geronimo in all probability weighed 1,600 to 2,000 kilos.

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It’s becoming to notice, in closing, that 16-year outdated Ronnie vindicated his father’s religion in sharpie-fishing for giant tuna simply three weeks after Harry’s debacle. Ronnie took a 676-pound bluefin from the tiny boat within the quick time of half-hour flat. When the Rosie returned to Montauk that afternoon with Ronnie’s huge fish, each boat within the harbor blew its whistle or fog horn. Rex, the dockmaster, fired salutes from the little brass cannon on the Yacht Membership.

That evening, on the Yacht Membership Crew’s Bar, a beaming Harry was shopping for drinks for all fingers, glad to see his son redeem household honor.