“The Gulf Stream and the other great ocean currents are the last wild country there is left. Once you are out of sight of land and of the other boats you are more alone than you can ever be hunting, and the sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats.”–Ernest Hemingway, “Hemingway on Fishing”
It was Ernest Hemingway territory. Aboard the 36-foot Beachcomber, a third of the way to Cuba under an azure sky in the spellbinding blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean in late May, the waves produced a steady chop.
The hunt for marlin was on.
Almost anywhere photographs of Hemingway are displayed, sure to be included is a picture of him posed next to a gargantuan marlin, which is hanging upside down and looking like some prehistoric beast.
Such fish–and Hemingway snared many–with its spearlike nose, weighing 1,000 pounds or more, dwarfs fishermen and incredulous spectators. Hemingway, born 105 years ago Wednesday in Oak Park, is remembered as a Nobel Prize-winning author whose best work endures as great literature. But he also is recalled as a bigger-than-life adventurer for his wartime exploits, African safaris and a devotion to big-game fishing.
Hemingway, who as a youngster fished the Des Plaines River in suburban Chicago, graduated to ever-larger species before his death from a self-inflicted shotgun wound in Idaho in July 1961. Over time he came to be identified with monstrous marlin, caught off Key West and Cuba.
“Blue marlin grow to more than 1,000 pounds, and very few are caught,” Capt. Tim Greene said. “I just watch all of the line go bye-bye. We really don’t want to go out there and hook into a 1,000-pound marlin.”
We were going to try, however. I joined Greene, director of the Key West Marlin Tournament, his friend Cindy Phillips and Rick Kirvan, a past winner of Key West’s Hemingwaylookalike contest and winner of the 2003 marlin tournament, in replicating a Hemingway-style adventure.
It seemed timely, given the recent publication of a compilation of the author’s fishing stories in a book called “Hemingway on Fishing.” The book includes short stories, magazine pieces and excerpts from novels.
Hemingway, editor Nick Lyons wrote in his introduction, “was viewed by many of the best big-game fishermen in the world as their peer and as a great innovator.”
Marlin matter
“Fighting a really big fish,” Hemingway wrote in a magazine story published in 1949, “fast and unaided, never resting, not letting the fish rest, is comparable to a 10-round fight in the ring in its requirements for good physical condition.”
I was hoping not to be beaten up, but the waves outside of American waters did a pretty good job tossing airborne even those of us who were seated.
Marlin fishing has been a passion for Greene, 55, for three decades. A jeweler by trade, he wears a marlin necklace.
“Some people want a lot of action,” Greene said. “A marlin fisherman is extremely patient. He’ll be relaxing, listening to music, Jimmy Buffett, and when that marlin hits that bait, there is extreme chaos. There is no other adrenaline rush like it in the world. The line is screaming.”
As we passed the seven-mile mark, on our way to 27 miles offshore, some aboard thought of screaming because of the unsettling nature of the ocean accompanied by a 16-knot wind. Greene watched birds circling overhead as a clue to where the fish were and sought a continental shelf with a sharp drop to 500-plus feet of depth.
“You know, Hemingway was the first marlin fisherman who went out deep,” Greene said. “Hemingway went to Cuba. He would fish as he was going on [his boat]. He was ahead of his time.”
Hemingway first visited Key West in 1928, though he didn’t start marlin fishing until 1932. His name helped popularize the community of 28,000 people located 160 miles west of Miami on the southern tip of the U.S. and turn it into a writer’s colony. His still-preserved home is a museum. There is a Hemingway Days festival every July, complete with a marlin tournament. And his writings and adventures chasing big fish continue to inspire fishermen.
Bearded and white-haired, Kirvan, 60, a local bartender, is twice blessed by Hemingway connections. He claimed his lookalike title in 1999.
“It’s the latter years of Hemingway,” Kirvan said of the appearance. “It probably helps if you have a little belly. I qualify, absolutely.”
In 2003 there were 153 entries, including men from Russia, South America and Australia. Victors are not allowed to repeat; they become judges. Then last year Kirvan surprised people by landing the tournament’s title-clinching 125-pound blue marlin as well.
“What are the odds?” he said. “A man dressed as Hemingway catching the winning blue marlin. They’d take that one off the board.”
Youthful sportsman
Hemingway’s roots are in Oak Park. He was born in the Chicago suburb and attended high school there. The Hemingway Museum on Oak Park Avenue honors him, as does his birthplace home a block away.
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The museum not only chronicles Hemingway’s life at every stage; it also offers photographic evidence of him as a sportsman at an early age. The earliest known photo of Hemingway with a fishing rod and rifle was taken when he was 5. Other photos show Hemingway with some of his super-sized marlin catches. One includes American bullfighter Sidney Franklin at his side, an overlapping of interests for Hemingway. The fish is hanging by its tail on a pier in Key West. Another photo shows Hemingway piloting the Pilar, his 38-foot boat. A sister boat is on display in Islamorada, Fla., midway between Miami and Key West.
Young Ernest rode his bicycle to the Des Plaines River to fish. By 1916, shortly before volunteering to drive an ambulance during World War I, he had become a fly fisherman.
Hemingway perhaps is appreciated better now in Oak Park than he was a few decades ago, according to Virginia Cassin, the retired city clerk who is chairwoman of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. The group of about 500 members annually celebrates the writer’s birthday with a scholarly program and operates the two Hemingway-related buildings.
“For a long time here, Hemingway was persona non grata,” Cassin said. “He was seen as a roustabout. There seems to be a renewal of interest.”
It probably didn’t help his relations with the town that the comment “Oak Park is a city of broad lawns and narrow minds” is attributed to him.
Cassin acknowledged the remark, but said Hemingway followers are not sure it is genuine. The foundation, she added, even will provide a small reward if anyone can establish proof Hemingway truly said it.
The big strike
“Fish!” Greene yelled.
It was shortly before 9 a.m. when a fish exploded out of the water and ran with my hook, the zipping of the 30-pound test line making a buzzing sound.
Greene strapped a white belt around my waist, anchored the butt end of the rod in a holder and shouted, “Reel! Reel!”
I was thrown against the rod rack and felt my back bruise. Not long after, the line came free. The bait, 10-inch-plus ballyhoo fish, was missing, no doubt swallowed. The predator fish was gone, but what was it? Greene withheld judgment until we dragged in the leader. He saw the way the line frayed and said, yes, it was a billfish. Later, Greene suggested that I had lost a 175- to 200-pound blue marlin. Given the muscle flexed, I found it difficult to imagine landing it.
“The marlin hit a trolled bait in four different ways,” Hemingway wrote. “First, with hunger, again with anger, then simply playfully, last with indifference.”
I didn’t have enough experience to tell, but I was betting that given how swiftly it worked, the marlin that stripped my bait took it with either hunger or anger.
“The trouble with a billfish is getting the hook in him,” Greene said. “It has a hard plate in the mouth.”
Two hours later, the line zinged again. Dolphin fish, Greene said. Dolphin? Was I catching Flipper? No. This was the tasty white, fleshy, mahi-mahi of seafood restaurant menus. I brought in a speckled 8-pound fish.
Then I hauled in a 20-pound dolphin fish. Later another dolphin fish struck. This was a bigger fish. Keep the rod tip up and the line tight, Greene advised. The waves and fish conspired to bang me against the rod rack repeatedly. But I reeled the fish alongside the boat and Greene gaffed it–a 40-pound dolphin fish, its body as bright as a rainbow.
Kirvan hooked one at least as large, but the mahi-mahi slipped off the gaff as it was raised over the side and flopped wildly on the deck. Reacting creatively as the fish slapped at his legs, Kirvan trapped it with his shins.
“We have dinner for everybody,” Kirvan proclaimed.
Dinner, yes; a marlin, no.
“It’s probably the hardest species to catch,” Greene said. “It’s a challenge that not everyone can meet.”
We had to be content with our mahi-mahi . . . and reading Ernest Hemingway’s words about big marlin.