We approach the Lump, where several boats are already bobbing on
the surface. If we were after tuna, we'd stop here, too, but the
wahoo are rumored to be farther out. Captain Kevin speeds us on
through the Midnight Lump.
Oil platforms start to pop up in every direction on the horizon.
Since the late 1940s,
oil companies have erected around 3,000 rigs
off the coasts of
Texas and
Louisiana, milking the precious fuel
from the ocean floor. To catch fish in the Gulf, you go out to the
rigs. Smaller fish like to hang around the pilings, to hide from
the bigger fish - for instance, a hungry wahoo.
Kevin slows the boat down and approaches a rig. We put out three
lines and begin slowly circling the platform. "Sometimes they're
smarter than you," Earl says, lighting a cigarette. "The bigger
ones are harder; they've been around a few times. You have to make
'em wanna bite."
A couple of workers in hard hats watch us from the catwalks. I ask
Earl how you can tell it's a wahoo on the bait. "You know what you
got," he smiles. "That line goes across the water at 40 miles an
hour. It's singin'. "
Earl grew up on the bayou and has been fishing nearly all of his 55
years. His charter business is only a little over a year old, but
he's already thinking of getting another boat. Like every other
fisherman in Louisiana, he eats a lot of fish. But he can't stand
sushi, can't bear the thought of eating raw tuna. On the other
hand, Earl admits he loves to eat raw shrimp, heads and all, with
"a little salt, pepper, Tabasco."
We speed off to another rig and start circling again, trailing
three lines at a slow speed. No fish here either. We head out
farther and reach what's called the rip, where the blue ocean water
meets the green water from the Gulf. It's a dramatic, visible line
in the ocean, blue on one side, green on the other, divided by a
wall of vegetation extending, often, all the way to the sea bottom.