8 Striking Gold in Senegal

One Monster Fish Leads to Another

Setting off from Dakar in a sturdy thirty-foot craft powered by a 225-horsepower outboard, Issa wove us in and out of the incoming rollers. The waves were ten feet tall and crashing down in roaring foam, and we had to beat them before they beat us, which was no problem. Denna, the first mate, also Senegalese, clung to the canopy frame, as did I, the entire Atlantic opening up before us just as sapphire as the sky.

We went about half a mile, then came to a fishing boat which I can only describe as an oversized pirogue of the typical model used in West Africa. It was made entirely from wood, painted a lot of bright colors, and banana-shaped. There were about ten fishermen in this one, of which half were boys between the ages of eight and eleven. They were pulling in a net in which they’d corralled their quarry, and the diameter of the encircling floats was decreasing with every tug.

We pulled up as they hauled in about twenty silvery white ballyhoos, a Pinocchio-looking baitfish I recalled from the Caribbean. They were a foot long, and a dozen went into our bait cooler. A shouting match then ensued between their captain and ours with people on board the other boat restraining the irate fisherman. I couldn’t tell what was being said because they were speaking a mixture of French and Wolof.

Meanwhile, there were smaller pirogues zooming up and down the waves like a swarm of hornets going every which way. Most boats were propelled by 15 hp two-strokes, and each one was occupied by a single fisherman steering in the stern while trailing a handline. There must’ve been about forty of these boats expertly avoiding each other as they circled an area that was obviously rich in fish.

They were out there for small tuna, a foot long each, and when they hooked one it was a phenomenal sight. Working their arms above their heads, strips of cloth wrapped around their thumbs, they pulled the cartwheeling tunas in. Then, in one single motion they’d unhook their catches and toss them forward while veering away from oncoming boats.

I couldn’t help it. In my head, I labeled these guys “the X-wing fighters.”

When I came to Dakar, I had no idea what I’d be fishing for. We’d made reservations to stay at this place called La Cabane du Pêcheur, which was right on the shore and connected to a fishing charter service called Atlantic Evasion. We ate prawns and oysters in their bar and watched boys doing pushups on Ngor Beach while women with baskets on their heads sold bracelets and dolls and hippo carvings to the few tourists out on the October sand. There was a red monkey with a long expressive face shackled to a pile of trash by the front entrance which some locals tormented and others fed, and on the walls inside there were tarpon heads and tuna heads, but most of all, the heads of giant swordfish.

It was a fish I knew nothing about, but a fish I had on my monster list because of that spear-shaped snout which has actually skewered dudes. I’d seen an interview on TV about one that had leapt into a boat and stabbed a kid right through the face, and I had read of some incidents too. Swordfish have been known to attack boats, sometimes even sinking them by piercing holes right through hulls. If that doesn’t qualify a fish as monstrous, then I don’t know what does.

Those saber-schnozzes, by the way, are made from bone and cartilage and are used to stun smaller fish. When swordfish go bursting into schools and slashing all around, they wound their prey, then come back and swallow them.

Anyway, I figured that the fishing trip I booked was reef fishing for small fish. But the next day, when I found out that it was an excursion for blue marlin, my whole world instantly flipped.

I immediately started researching and found out that “swordfish” is a blanket term for any fish with a swordlike upper-jaw, but it’s also a specific species, Xiphias gladius. According to Wikipedia, a source I tell my students to avoid, the blue marlin is a member of the billfish family, which consists of sailfish (Istiophoridae family), marlins (same family), and swordfish.1 More importantly, because blue marlin can reach sixteen feet and weigh a ton and leap fifteen feet, they’re often considered “the holy grail of fishing.”

As for the species’ place in literary history, I was reminded of the role the marlin played in Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. But for some reason, I was more intrigued by its connection to a popular western author I had never read.

Zane Grey was a fishing fanatic, and he went after billfish all over the planet. He held multiple world records, was the president of a few exclusive fishing clubs, and according to his son, spent three hundred days a year fishing in his later life. He actually pioneered the sport of sailfishing, and was also the inventor of a hookless lure called “the teaser.” He caught the first thousand-pound fish on record for rod and reel and wrote numerous nonfiction articles for outdoor magazines.

In his 1919 book Tales of Fishes, Grey includes a chapter entitled “From Records of the New York Bureau of Fisheries, by G. B. Goode.” This excerpt weighs in on the confusion regarding the difference between swordfish and sailfish and marlin, in which the ichthyologist declares “spear-fish is a much better name” for the whole genera.2

In order to provide an idea of the swordfish’s raw strength, Grey then uses Goode’s account of a Professor Richard Owen, who testifies “in an England court in regard to [this fish’s] power.” I have no idea why a billfish was on trial, but this is what went down in the book: “It strikes with the accumulated force of fifteen double-handed hammers. Its velocity is equal to that of a swivel shot, and is as dangerous in its effect as a heavy artillery projectile.”3

That chapter also includes a short history of fishing for swordfish with spears. No doubt, this is where Grey’s inspiration to harpoon dolphins came from, which is why he cofounded a club circa 1912 for the express purpose of porpoise hunting. Flipper, beware!

One particular paragraph, however, deserves its own time in the spotlight again for the mythology it provokes. It covers a vast range of subject matter, including sportfishing, rumors of attacking vessels, and the PTSD swordfish are capable of afflicting fishermen with:

The pursuit of the swordfish is much more exciting than ordinary fishing, for it resembles the hunting of large animals upon the land and partakes more of the nature of the chase. There is no slow and careful baiting and patient waiting, and no disappointment caused by the accidental capture of worthless “bait-stealers.” The game is seen and followed, and outwitted by wary tactics, and killed by strength of arm and skill. The swordfish is a powerful antagonist sometimes, and sends his pursuers’ vessel into harbor leaking, and almost sinking, from injuries he has inflicted. I have known a vessel to be struck by wounded swordfish as many as twenty times in a season. There is even the spice of personal danger to savor the chase, for the men are occasionally wounded by the infuriated fish. One of Captain Ashby’s crew was severely wounded by a swordfish which thrust his beak through the oak floor of a boat on which he was standing, and penetrated about two inches in his naked heel. The strange fascination draws men to this pursuit when they have once learned its charms. An old swordfish fisherman, who had followed the pursuit for twenty years, told me that when he was on the cruising-ground, he fished all night in his dreams, and that many a time he has rubbed the skin off his knuckles by striking them against the ceiling of his bunk when he raised his arms to thrust the harpoon into visionary monster swordfishes.4

Here’s another moment from that chapter that says a lot about this fish’s spirit:

When the fish has swallowed the hook it rises to the surface, making prodigious leaps and plunges. At last it is dragged to the boat, secured with a boat-hook, and beaten to death before it is hauled on board. Such fishing is not without danger, for the spear-fish sometimes rushes upon the boat, drowning the fisherman, or wounding him with its terrible weapon. The fish becomes furious at the appearance of sharks, which are its natural enemies. They engage in violent combats, and when the spear-fish is attached to the fisherman’s line it often receives frightful wounds from the adversaries.5

The bottom line being, with reports such as this, I was more than just psyched to get myself a legendary blue marlin. If anything, I was a kid again, pumped up with childlike wonder, visions of marlins leaping through my head.

We set out trolling with the four biggest baitcasting reels I had ever used in my life. They were gold Shimanos, each the size of a gallon jug, and they were strung up with some incredibly thick polymer line. The two outside rods were connected to outrigger poles that stuck out like alien antennae, almost twenty feet long each, and they were equipped with rubber bands that would snap if a fish hit, causing the lines to whip out in the wake of the boat. The idea being that with two lines on the outside and two lines over the stern, these arms would keep tackle from crossing each other and tangling up.

Trailing behind us, I could see two de-nosed ballyhoos skipping over the surface at roughly twenty yards, and two sparkling squiddy lures that must’ve been fifteen inches long skimming the surface fifty yards out. The ballyhoos had giant circle hooks strung through them, and the lures were equally as formidable.

Getting to the spot took almost an hour. It was twenty-five miles away, and on the way we saw flying fish just brushing the waves. At first I thought they were birds because of their gliding flappery that lasted up to forty yards. But sometimes, they’d push off on the crest of a wave and gather another ten or twenty before returning to the sea.

I tried to ask my “English-speaking crew” about these fish, but their English was worse than my French, which was only sufficient for exchanging cursory information. This made it difficult to get a handle on tactics.

As usual I was taking notes, writing down the details I saw. Like the bright orange buoy we eventually came upon marking the fishing grounds. There were gulls diving and more flying fish, plus occasional bursts of small tuna here and there due to larger fish forcing them up. It was all going on within a half-mile radius of the buoy, which was being circumnavigated by another swarm of the aforementioned X-wing fighters.

I took a closer look at their pirogues, which tended to have names like “Papa This” and “Papa That” painted on the sides. Other names were written in the national language (as opposed to the language imposed by the colonial power), and some pirogues were decorated with portraits of people. Some of these were of Muslim-robed elders, but others were of infants in their swaddlings. Also, many of the outboard motors were decorated with patchworks of different colored fabrics that left me scratching my head. Were these purely ornamental, or were they sewn by wives for good luck, or did they serve a utilitarian purpose like keeping the metal from heating up in the sun?

I couldn’t tell, but I could see the arms of the fishermen working like windmills to pull in the tuna they tossed up front. Other times, they bailed out bloody water, which consistently collected in the stern since the bows were always pointing skyward and the spray kept coming in and washing down through the fish.

There were about thirty swooping, veering, multi-tasking X-wing fishermen tearing around in that spot, and each of them was bringing in tuna every few minutes. At this rate, I estimated that if each boat ended up with two hundred fish at the end of the day, then at least six thousand tuna were harvested daily from this spot.

It was an active and impressive vision, but ultimately disturbing. The other day I’d walked through the fishing village by our hotel, and I’d seen baskets of tuna being sold in the labyrinthine alleyways. The average size was a foot long, and I later asked a fishing guide what kind of fish those were. She told me they were yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), which is known as “albacore” in French. “Albacore,” however, is a deceiving word because albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) is an entirely different species.

Anyhow, because of that misunderstanding, I was under the impression that the X-wingers were mass harvesting sexually immature yellowfin tuna which reproduce at about twenty-one inches. What I was really watching, though, was the mass harvesting of skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), which reproduce at nearly sixteen inches. But it didn’t matter that my species were mixed up because none of those fish were measuring up to spawning size. The fact is that when you take juveniles out of a system, it stunts the whole damn food chain.

Hence, it wasn’t just a small percentage of the overall commercial fishery taking place off the Senegal coast that I saw being boated; what I was witnessing was an actual sample of what’s happening all over the overfished world. Of course, habitat loss and pollution and other factors work into the grand equation, but if there’s one thing I keep learning from studying fisheries it’s that world tuna populations are being devastated at a totally unstable rate. All populations have plummeted severely in the last half century, and as the WWF recently reported in the Guardian, global tuna and mackerel populations have suffered a catastrophic decline of 74 percent in the last forty years. The take-home message being: “We are destroying vital food sources, and the ecology of our oceans.”6

But back to skipjack tuna, which is commonly canned and currently listed in the category of “Least Concern” by the IUCN.7 This species accounts for 40 percent of the entire tuna industry. As noted in the article “Overfished Tuna ‘Near Extinction,’” “Marine scientists have little idea how long [skipjack] will be able to withstand rising catches.”8 And as history has shown, when we become dependent on such heavily fished commercial industries like those of cod or sturgeon or salmon or bluefin tuna, demand eventually takes its toll in the form of drastic crashes. We then wait too long to establish regulations, illegal operations take place, and imminently, the well goes dry. After that, we move on to alternative species, and the cycle starts all over again.

Nevertheless, Denna casted out a chromy fly-like lure on a lighter rod and handed it to me, and following the zooming X-wing fighters, we hopped on the eradication bandwagon. I hooked a tuna instantly, and it skipped across our wake as I hauled it in. A few minutes later, I hooked another and brought it in as well.

Issa then took a knitting needle with a loop of string on it and poked it through a tuna eye. He penetrated its brain, slid it through the other eye, then pulled the loop through its spasming head. Securing the loop to a circle hook, the expiring fish was then ready to be used as bait, and I wasn’t above playing a micropart in the destruction of this fishery. The other tuna was hooked as well, and we dropped them in, cut the engine, and began fishing for blue marlin.

Montage: alternating between trolling and drift fishing, we cast for tuna. Every fifteen minutes, we’d reel in the bait and switch it. Freshies were necessary, which meant that we—like hundreds of other sportfishers doing the same thing at the same time worldwide—were contributing to a decline in skipjack tuna.

And as the African sun blazed its way through the afternoon, the catching of bait became tougher and tougher. We started relying on one of the X-wing fighters who’d swoop by and toss us a live one whenever it was needed.

That’s what we did for the rest of the day. We burned through about sixteen juveniles, and we didn’t even get a bite.

But later, Issa was letting out some line, and he was intent on something deep beneath the surface. He then handed the rod to me and told me to reel in.

There was nothing on the other end, but apparently something had happened. When we got that tuna back to the boat, we saw a big slice on it. The thing is, when a big fish chomps a little fish, there’s usually chomp marks on both sides. But on this fish, the injury was only on one side—meaning a marlin had slashed it with its razor-sharp beak, then decided not to go for it.

By five o’clock, my eyes were stinging from the salt air, and I was exhausted from the sun. Having only eaten a measly cheese sandwich I was also hungry, so I cut off a slice of tuna that I decided to think of as sashimi. In part, I did this to keep from feeling guilty about all that skipjack going to waste. Still, any semblance of regret I might’ve entertained was overshadowed by a fog of frustration. I’d been pumped to catch a blue marlin, and now all those visions of bringing back a cobalt-blue ten-footer and hanging it from the winch in front of the hotel were basically smashed to dust.

But considering the conservation status of this fish, it’s a good thing I didn’t bring a marlin back. In the last fourteen years, blue marlin populations have declined 31 to 38 percent, and they’re Redlisted as “Vulnerable.” Much of this is due to being the unfortunate bycatch of the tuna-fishing industries, which rely on the practice of longlining, which leaves thousands of marlin dead on the line. As the IUCN also notes, “This species is not considered to be well managed in any part of its range.”9

Just like us, I figured, trolling back to Ngor Beach with little confidence that a marlin would explode from the depths and tail-dance my eyeballs off. Apparently, Issa and Denna felt the same way because our trolling speed was pretty swift.

So I gave up. It was over. I knew it, and I was bummed—yet thrilled to know that I could still encounter what the French call “the blue emperor.” This was all part of my new attitude, which I’d picked up while considering the stingray, so my emotions were admittedly both pessimistic and optimistic at the same time, and I was feeling the buzz and burn of both.

That’s when we hit the dolphin field. One jumped and I saw its stereotypical silhouette hanging for a second above the water, and then it splashed down and I cheered. Sure, I’d seen plenty of leaping dolphins in my life, but this one came at a time when I needed something.

Then there were more. They were swimming toward us and under us, just a foot beneath the surface, and I was whooping up a storm.

And suddenly, with only a mile to go before the fishing trip was finished, something white appeared in the direction the dolphins were heading. It looked like a puffy marshmallow, so Issa changed course, and we followed the dolphins to see what it was.

It was a bloated, rotten, nasty-ass porpoise—just the front half. It was blubbery and stringy and decaying and rank with a spaghetti of arteries and tubes hanging from it. Its skull could be seen coming through the decomposing meat, its teeth exposed and curving along its jawline in a stomach-curdling, grimacing grin.

Swinging about, Issa turned to me with a toothy smile of his own and uttered a single word:

“Dorado.”

Also known as mahi-mahi, dolphin, dolphinfish, and green dolphin, the dorado is a hydrocephalic-headed creature with a quasi-Quasimodo quality that makes it a mutant-looking fish. On the flip side, others see it as a stunning amalgamation of neon gold and aquamarine, so therefore a gorgeous fish. But that’s the thing about monsters: they aren’t always pure evil or pure ugly because they’re eerier when there’s a tension involving beauty. Because let’s face it: monsters are paradoxes invented by paradoxes who can be just as terrifying as they can be alluring. Take the classic concept of sirens, for example, attracting sailors to their deaths. Or the statuesque centaurs of Greek mythology. Or sexy vampires. That’s why I’d classify dorado as something freaky enough to be classified as “monstrous.”

Consider also that the words “mahi-mahi” translate from Hawaiian as “super-duper strong,” and that this species can be found grubbing out on putrid porpoises which no self-respecting salmon would touch with a ten-foot pole, and we’ve got even more reason to lump Coryphaena hippurus in this creepy club. Being carnivorous top predators (the Greek root of koryphe meaning “apex”), they also grow at an inhuman rate and become sexually mature before they’re a year old. But most of all, they have those unearthly perverted faces complete with smooshed-in simian brows.

As for their range, they’re in the tropics all over the world, but I had never met one before. I’d seen them caught by fishermen in the Caribbean, and I knew they were good to eat, but I’d never considered going for one. Now, however, I had the chance, so I was going to take it.

We got down-current of the foul-smelling porpoise, where Denna sliced some strips of the belly flesh off a tuna and Issa rigged up a lighter rod. Denna attached a bloody chunk and threw it out by the side of the boat and let it sink while I released line. Then Denna motioned for me to reel in.

Instantly, something was splashing on the water, and then it leapt. It was a technicolored dorado shining like candy, completely out of the water and shuddering as if charged with lightning. Its colors were crazily incandescent, and I saw it spit out my bait.

“Reel! Reel!” Denna yelled, so I powered down, burning that tuna chunk across the surface. The dorado was hot on its tail, hurdling in and out of the water. Then it connected again, the rod bowed, and the fish dove.

I horsed back and the dorado came up a few more times with some tremendous aerial acrobatics, somersaulting and corkscrewing and flipping in the air. I whooped, then got it up next to the boat. My guides motioned for me to let it wear itself out, so that’s what I did. It swam around under us, and they told me to hold it there while they scrambled to get a handline baited. When they threw that line overboard, we turned our attention back to the fish thrashing beneath us. Denna gaffed it in the back and hauled it over the rail.

It was a vibrant five-pounder, but nobody stopped to check it out. A trap door was opened and the fish was kicked in so we could concentrate on the other line. Issa plunged the corpse of a chopped-up tuna into the water and started scrubbing it with a brush. Blood and chum were coming off as a dazzling pack of iridescent blurs passed like sharks beneath us.

Issa then baited my line and tossed it in and something took it straight away. I reeled in, and it was on. It came up at least four feet long and peeled off ten yards of line. I had to bring this one in by raising the pole, then reeling on the way down. The fish stayed down, but then it switched directions and shot straight into the sky.

Man! I ended up battling that dorado more in the air than in the water. It kept bursting up and shaking like an incensed bull, and I kept pulling its thrashing mass toward the boat, coaxing it back into the ocean. Fluming and spuming, it just kept erupting in front of us. I’d reel in while it was airborne, and it was going just as nuts as I was, yowling every time it leapt. It must’ve launched itself eight or ten times, the jumpingest fish I ever fought. But ultimately, I led it toward the boat and let it swim circles for five more minutes before Denna gaffed it.

Somewhere in that pandemonium, Issa hooked a smaller one on the handline, and we got that one in the boat as well. I then caught a third one, also smaller, but can’t remember any of the details—because really, it was all about that monster dorado, whose weight doesn’t even matter because the fight it gave boiled down to some of the most spectacular fishing I’d ever experienced. To me, that fish was a thousand pounds of holy grail.

Not knowing much about dorado, but having heard that they change colors rapidly, I’d snapped some shots before it had gone into the hold just in case its spectrum faded. Strangely enough, when we came in twenty minutes later, the three smaller dorados had dulled a bit. But the big one, its gold was just as glimmery as when it had been in the sky going bonkers.

Even more ablaze than its colors, though, was what I realized later. That observation being: when we look at these truly bizarre, monstrous fish, we don’t see vicious incarnations of nightmares as much as we see funny versions of our own muppet-selves.

But seriously folks, we do see ourselves when we look at these fish, and more than that, we see them from the point of view of a child. I mean, they’re stripped down to their cartoon essentials: that comic mouth, those bubble eyes, the daffy shape of their doofy-looking heads with human expressions we can’t help feeling connections with. Still, our adult selves are capable of taking these associations further and making something of the reasons why we want to feel a kinship with animals that look like us. So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty:

When we look at certain creatures, we see ourselves in Nature. And if we allow for the wiping out of creatures that look like us, this speaks volumes about how we can turn the other cheek. So when we see ourselves reflected in creatures, we see the roles we need to play in order to sustain ourselves—which brings me back to McGuane’s thesis of putting back more than we take out.

Speaking on behalf of sportsmen and outdoorsy types (yep, I just elected myself), I say that because of the time we spend in the Wild, and because of what the Wild rewards us with, we have an intimate connection with Nature. And this intimacy, which stems from the knowledge that we’ve been blessed by the greatest of all possible outcomes, comes from knowing that Nature can save us from ourselves. That is, we recognize a healing faith in our chromosomes that we understand at a cellular level.

As my friend the eco-writer David Gessner states on his Nat Geo Explorer episode “Call of the Wild,” “Science is proving what we’ve always known intuitively: nature does good things to the human brain. It makes us healthier, happier, and smarter.” He goes on to say: “It turns out there’s hard science behind this. . . . [Researchers] have proven that walking in nature reduces stress hormones and lowers blood pressure and heart rates . . . but they’ve also discovered something about trees that kind of blows my mind. Some trees like cypress give off chemical compounds called ‘phytoncides.’ We absorb the phytoncides and they promote our natural killer cells which help us fight cancer. We can experience a 40 percent increase in our natural killer cells from just walking in the woods.”10

So if there’s scientific evidence that being near trees can increase our chances of living longer and healthier, it’s reasonable to make the logical leap that our proximity to water can do something similar. Because when it comes down to it, us outsidey folks know that being outside just makes us feel better, which has psychosomatic effects on our physiology. That’s just all there is to it, and we know it in our DNA.

We also know that our relationship with the Wild is a privilege we must defend. This is our responsibility, or else we’re irresponsible—especially when we know what Nature can do for us. That’s why I call upon my own kind—anglers, hikers, canoers, mushroom hunters, and anyone else who just has to get out of town—to step it up with giving back.

But how do we do that? Well, we start by the taking time to sit down and have some serious conversations with ourselves. Then we set some goals so that when we look back on what we put back we’ll see our reflections in the mirror and not feel like crap.

Those who partake of this challenge will differ in their approaches. Some might shoot to pick up litter, others might vow to revolutionize agricultural methods or discover the next alternative fuel. Some, however, have already been hard at work.

According to an article in Fish2Fork (“The campaigning restaurant guide for people who want to eat fish—sustainably”), leading fish distributers and supermarket conglomerates recently “called for immediate action to prevent overfished yellowfin tuna populations from collapsing within five years.” Birdseye Foods, along with executives from thirty-seven other influential companies and the WWF, have petitioned the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission to reduce the harvesting of wild yellowfin by 20 percent to “ensure the sustainability of all Indian Ocean tuna stocks.”11

Imagine that: CEOs actually fighting for balance in the ecosystem! Sure, their main impetus is to keep their businesses going, but here’s what I’m looking at: if corporations can engage in meaningful activism, there’s no reason why individuals can’t do the same.

As for me, I’m going to make it my mission to come up with a more concrete idea about how I intend to put back more than I take out. Because at heart, putting back more is a matter of respect. It’s a matter of respecting our place in the world, respecting other places in the world, and respecting ourselves. So in the interest of living up to this challenge, I’m imposing a deadline on myself: by the end of the next chapter. This will give me time to seriously reflect and have a productive dialogue with myself.

The conversation had begun.