The Gaffe’s On Me
It happened on the last day of the Boothbay Harbor Tuna Tournament in early August 1978. We were aboard my old Shark II, a 34-foot lobster boat I had rejigged for the charter trade, and we were drifting on a flat, pewter-colored sea about 6 miles south of Seguin Island in the Gulf of Maine. The mood was pretty melancholy, as we hadn’t had a legitimate tuna strike all summer, and we had just pulled the hook on a big thresher shark that had picked up a bait and rocketed to the surface. My vision of receiving the Largest Shark trophy and $50 prize — to thunderous applause, no doubt — evaporated into the humid air.
But the little yellow balloon closest to the boat suddenly popped, and 130-pound Dacron began streaming off the 14/0 Penn Senator. Glenn Hodgdon of Southport, Maine, jumped into the fighting chair and snapped the harness to the reel’s lugs. We scrambled to bring in the other lines, and I hit the starter button. The big Buick V-8 roared to life, and we were off.
The tuna streaked away just under the surface as we backed down, then dove deep. For nearly three hours, Glenn determinedly pumped and reeled, gaining a few yards now and then,
