This is the place of Hemingway and big fish. There is something right about launching a fishing and hunting column under the noisy canopy of Key West nightlife. I think Hemingway would approve.
Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, first landed here in April of 1928 on their return from Paris. Ten years later he left Pauline and the Keys for Cuba. By then, the highway connecting Key West with the mainland was completed and the island's lifestyle was changed forever. A new breed of tourist had invaded Hemingway's roost. These were soft tourists who didn't have the stamina to fight big fish. Their hands were mush and their muscles collapsed under the strain of a fish that fights for an hour or more and strips line from the reel in surges of deep-water fury.
Today these tourists hide in the smoky haze of the new Sloppy Joe's bar. The original Sloppy Joe's is now Captain Tony's and the layout inside is similar to what it was when Hemingway held court and watched the street for local characters who were part of his "mob" of drinking buddies.
I was in Key West with my hunting partner, Carolee, and our friend, Jack Teague. While we sat in the new Sloppy Joe's the soft tourists surrounded us like a plague of locusts. They were enraptured by the commercialization of Papa Hemingway. Sloppy Joe's owners have decorated the bar with Hemingway's grizzled image. His face is on the coasters, menus, and even fans to beat the summer's heat. Ernest Hemingway has been commercialized, sanitized, and packaged in plastic. I pocketed some coasters.
I've got a T-shirt from Sloppy Joe's but I didn't wear it at Key West. I wore the hunting shirt I used on my last African safari.
Carolee finished her daiquiri, Jack and I drained our beers, and the three of us walked on down to Captain Tony's, which is more to my liking. There are thousands of business cards stapled to the walls and ceiling, and for decoration several hundred women have left part of their underwear stapled to the ceiling. The bar is dark and cavelike, and the cards and underwear give it an outlaw appeal that I think Hemingway would have approved of.
The three of us sat at the bar. Carolee drank daiquiris and Jack and I drank beer. We tried to picture Tony's as Sloppy Joe's, with Hemingway sitting across from us while sailors danced with bar girls in the background. He would have been talking about fishing, just as we were talking about fishing, and he would have been just as frustrated.
WE WANTED TO GO FISHING. Jack's boat was ready for us, we were ready for it, but the seas weren't letting fishermen go. For the three days we were in Key West we went to Tony's and drank beer and wished we were fishing.
Sometimes we sat on the enclosed porch of our place on Little Torch Key at Dolphin Marina. The comfortable two-bedroom cottage gave the three of us a place to wait out the rain and wind when we weren't in Key West.
Jack and I walked down to the marina to see if any of the charter skippers had been out. Captain G. Paul Whorton was working on The Sundance, catching up on the little chores that are ignored when you're busy with charters who are paying cash. Jack asked if he'd been out.
"Not today," Captain Whorton said. "The wind's are wrong for any fishing. When they are quartering us they beat us up too bad, so it is better to stay in."
He climbed out of his boat and stood on the dock with us. "Shame too. We could be catching big fish right now."
Captain Whorton pointed to a poster-sized picture of a happy angler with a huge bull dolphin. It was an ad for his boat right on the dock.
"See that?" he asked.
"Looked at it," I answered.
"That is a great story."
Every charter captain has stories, but he had the picture on the dock to back up his. During the summer a man and his wife approached him about a charter. They had never been blue-water fishing and were apprehensive about the cost, and whether they could catch anything.
"I told them we could try," he said. "So they paid me the day rate and we went fishing."
The woman's husband caught a dolphin that weighed about 30 pounds. The fish fought hard and he was taking a break and she was up for the next fish. Captain Whorton trolled his baits around a large piece of flotsam. One rod was jerked down and the line peeling off the reel. The mate helped the young woman into the fighting chair. A bull dolphin isn't a marlin but it has speed and power.
"This fish was unusual because it jumped," Whorton said. "She got a real fight with that fish and she was game for it. She didn't let the fish beat her."
After an hour-long battle, which included a second run when the dolphin took off with Whorton's short gaff hanging from its side, the fish was boated. It was too big for the coolers so Whorton iced it down and ran back to the marina to have the fish weighed. At the docks it was certified for 72 pounds caught on 20-pound test line--a new record. The young woman is Kathleen Teague (no relation to Jack). She is from Tallahassee, Florida, and on her first blue-water trip she made it into the record books.
When the sea is good to fishermen, stories like hers are the rewards. But when it doesn't want you, the waves turn ugly and threaten you and your boat. All you can do is wait it out.
SO WE WAITED-- by touring Hemingway's house in Key West, by drinking in the bar where Papa held court, and by watching soft tourists mingle with men and women who were in Key West to fish. Our time ran out and the fish I might have caught off Key West will wait for me until later this year. When I go back I'll tell you about the fish, the fight, the boat, and the captain. I'll tell you if things were good, or if they were bad, and if I lost the fish or brought it in. When the fish is a sail or marlin I won't kill it, I'll let it go. Some of the game fish I'll kill and cut into fillets and steaks and then I'll freeze them to pack them home.
Here, in this electronic column, I'll tell you about those fish and others. I'll tell you about hunting trips and guns, the guides, the hunters, and how you too can go there. We've got a long time to talk about the good things in the outdoors. The dogs, guns, tackle, game, fishing and fishermen, hunts and hunters. Next time I'll tell you about hunting hogs in the Florida swamps with the Seminole Indians.
For information on Capt. Whorton's charter call 305-872-3995, or Fax 305-872-8798. You can write him at: Capt. Paul Whorton, Dept. All Outdoors/glg, Sundance Expeditions, Inc., 27366 Cayman Lane, Ramrod, Summerland Key, FL 33042.
For information on accommodations and boat rentals at Dolphin Marina call 800-553-0308, Fax 305-82-0927, or write: Dolphin Marina, Dept. All Outdoors/glg, Rt. 4, Box 1038, Oceanside, Little Torch Key, FL 33042.
Galen L. Geer can be reached by e-mail at 73737,2466@compuserve.com
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