Bringing in the clowns of the sea

Anybody who knows me really well will tell you I have a peculiar fetish of sorts. I love clowns.

One friend in particular, Hamp Green, knows that no matter where we bump into one another, clowns are bound to come up in our conversation. He thinks I have a mental illness but, in all honesty, I bring up clowns just to keep the banter going and my guess is it’s been going on for several years now.

I e-mail him pictures of creepy clowns, articles about the rash of clowns that are wandering around towns scaring people — even the story about how Target stores took clown costumes off their shelves because of this latest clown epidemic.

It’s possible my obsession started when I attended college at Ringling College of Art & Design in Sarasota, Fla. I lived in a neighborhood full of clowns that were part of the circus, so bumping into clowns was a daily occurrence. But delving back even further into my childhood, my dad would dress up as a clown at a church festival every year. He was such a good clown that none of his five kids knew it was him.

Maybe a therapist’s chair is my next stop because this column is supposed to be about nature, and all it took was mentioning clowns and I’ve already used up most of my column revealing my rather odd clown syndrome.

The real reason I brought up clowns was fish-oriented and I simply got off track (as if you didn’t notice).

Right now and through June, the clowns are aplenty offshore. I am talking dolphin fish, mahi-mahi, dorado — whichever name you choose to call them.

So why do I compare them to clowns? Normally a vibrant blue color, they instantly put on a clown suit when excited or hooked, changing into a combination of yellow, red, neon green with bright blue and orange polka dots. Because the water is so clear in their realm, that transformation is amazing to watch. On slick, calm days you can really get an eyeful.

Trolling baits such as ballyhoo that skip across the surface, you might see a bright blue mahi lazing on the surface — but as soon as it sees that bait go by, the costume comes out as it charges across the ocean in a blaze of ever-changing colors.

Often with their dorsal fin out of the water, they streak toward the bait at Mach 2 and, upon reaching it, make an impossibly sharp hairpin turn and come up behind the bait wagging back and forth as if deciding whether the offering is worthy of devouring. It is a sight I never tire of seeing.

Extremely fast-growing, dolphin love Sargasso weed patches that hold small fish that use the grass as shelter from hungry predators. One big dolphin I cleaned had 22 seahorses in its stomach and nothing else.

The smaller mahi, called schoolies, bunch up and I have seen schools with more than 100 fish in it.

On one trip a few years back, it was slick calm when I came upon a patch of Sargasso weed that was easily two acres in size. Pulling up to the edge of the weed patch, I cut the engines and drifted along with the weed and began chumming with small chunks of squid and cut ballyhoo. Within minutes, I had hundreds of schoolies under the boat, all neon blue, and pulled out small spinning rods just for grins.

Using small chunks of bait, we drifted them down into the mass of fish and the moment one took the bait, its clown imitation lit up. It was so awesome seeing all its buddies still wearing their blue outfits while the hooked fish flashed every color in a rainbow.

As I mentioned, dolphins are fast growers and the larger ones are a handful when hooked. Large bull dolphin (males) in particular can wear out the heftiest angler. Deep bodied, they will jump repeatedly trying to throw the hook and, if that tactic doesn’t work, they put their broad side at a 90-degree angle to the boat and it is like trying to reel in a sheet of plywood with the flat side against you.

While females (or cows) have a rounded head, bull dolphins have a head that is pretty much straight down, almost flat-faced. The normal weight is between 25 and 40 pounds, but I have caught a number of bull dolphins over 60 pounds and those big ones will kick your butt.

Even after a long fight, I advise you have the fish box open when you gaff the dolphin and throw it immediately into the box and slam the lid closed. That tail of theirs can pack a wallp, and that is experience talking. One lady I had on board wanted a picture of her big dolphin right after it was boated, and her entire leg was black and blue for weeks.

So there you have it, clowns of the sea and clowns in my mind. Now if I only had a good clown joke for Hamp Green...

This story was originally published May 6, 2017 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Bringing in the clowns of the sea."