Overtraining
It seldom pays to approach a marathon as if it were a sprint
cameron Plaag was part of the crews that caught the Texas state record blue marlin in 2020 and the Texas state record bluefin tuna this year. He also worked the cockpit when four central-texas execs climbed aboard the 63-foot Spencer Quantified—the same boat that caught the record bluefin—believing they were tougher than the Gulf of Mexico and every fish that swims in it.
“We were taking these guys offshore for three days,” Plaag recalls. “Leave around noon, spend two nights out there, then come back the next afternoon.” The fighting chair, he noted, was off the boat that week for maintenance.
Quantified was idling in her slip, dock lines already tossed and generators running, when the clients arrived and asked if there were enough hard seltzers on board. The captain and Plaag both flipped thumbs-up to their passengers, but the anglers insisted on one last trip to the store for more. And this gorgeous, sleek sport-fishing machine idled away diesel fuel for another half-hour.
“They were pounding cans all the way out,” Plaag says. “Never seen anything like it.”
Once they reached deep water, the captain idled Quantified, and Plaag dropped a swordfish bait.
“We made a couple of swordfish drops, but nothing,” Plaag says. “Then on the third drop, boom! We’re on.”
The fish wasn’t big, maybe 150 pounds, but it was a swordfish, and it was destined for grills from Galveston to Lubbock. The strongest of the anglers made fast work of getting it to the boat, and Plaag slid it through the door.
As soon as it came on board, long before it was dead or even tired, the men hooted and hollered and insisted on pictures. They grabbed and lifted the fish, and it thrashed as only a swordfish can thrash. And that thrashing didn’t stop until each of the four greenhorns was thoroughly battered and bruised.
They nursed their wounds with… more hard seltzers.
“The captain and I intervened at that point,” Plaag says. “It was just the first afternoon, and we didn’t want to have to go back because somebody got hurt.”
The fishermen slept well that night, and awoke ready to tackle big tuna… they thought.
“The punishment they took cranking big bluefins on 50-pound stand-up gear was incredible,” Plaag recalls.
The strongest of the foursome, short and stocky and pretty muscled up, spent 90 minutes on the rod with a fish Plaag guessed to be 600 pounds, “and halfway through the fight, he said he wanted more booze and a cigarette.” Ultimately, though, the fish won. “When the hook finally pulled,” Plaag says, “the guy couldn’t even stand up. He literally collapsed onto the deck.” Plaag remembers the guy saying he couldn’t feel his legs, but that might have been the seltzer talking.
“Big fish” action was good that trip, better than most. Over the course of an afternoon, a full day and one more afternoon, they wrestled a swordfish, several bluefins, three blue marlin and a sailfish.
Back at the dock, the four men boxed their swordfish fillets and turned their backs on the Gulf of Mexico.
“Swordfish might break a bone,” Plaag says, “but those tuna break your ego.”
When asked if he thought those men would chase bluefins again, Plaag smiled. “Not a chance,” he said.