You Have to Be a Swimmer
by Bill Valentine
It was evidently love at first sight. Of all of the romantic mismatches of the century, this would have to be classed as the greatest--a "tadpole" with a whale shark! Madaline and Doc Sandy, Candy and Don Sherwood, Melba, Pierre and Ken Haumont were slowly trolling lures off the southeast end of Turner Isle, (just north of Tiburon offshore from Kino Bay) hoping for a sailfish or dolphin strike, when someone aboard spotted a huge fin creasing the placid surface of the blue water. Believing it to be attached to the backbone of a sailfish, Ken gunned the 23' IMP the Tadpole I/O toward the suspicous-looking fin so as to bring the trolled lures within striking range of the surface-cruising fish. When they got close enought to clearly see the monster Ken immediately cut the throttle of the Tadpole realizing at once that he'd made a serious error of judgment and that they were not gazing at a sailfish, but instead, at the largest fish that swims the oceans of the world, a whale shark.
As the Tadpole slowly glided to a stop, the benign behemoth, with a lazy flip of his tail, swam toward the boat. Kenny swears that the monster had the look of love in his eyes as he circled the quivering (due to the knees nervously knocking aboard) hull, giving it a close-up inspection before finally deciding that the Tadpole just wasn't quite his (or her, as the case may have been) type. The sigh of relief that went out from the IMP as the whale shark swam away was heard clear back at Kino.
This was the only unnerving portion of the trip with the exception of poor Pierre's bad luck. He hooked the only sailfish of the trip on a spin rig, and after a nip and tuck 20 minute battle, the sail broke off--as the happy Valleyites caught an abundance of mahi-mahi (dolphin) each day of their stay, as well as lots of barracuda, sierra mackerel and Mexican skipjack. All of their fishing was done with lures, and whenever there was a hookup fishermen aboard would spin cast a lure into the vicinity of the hooked fish and quite often there would be 2 or 3 hookups at once.
Ken claimed that this was the cleanest trip he'd ever been on--he had to swim from the beach out to where they kept the boat anchored offshore each morning and evening for his sleeping--the 3 couples, for some reason, insisted on this.
