FISHING HISTORY in the MAKING

How the Palmetto State's big-game fishery evolved all thanks to a dedicated couple from Spartanburg, South Carolina

- CAMERON J. RHODES

Have you ever held history in your hands? There is a great power in visiting the relics from our past. I was lucky to hold a piece of South Carolina's sportfishing history today. I still feel its impression in my palms the delicate edges, the weight. 

The marlin bill I held in my hands is nearly twice my age. It is fragile and brown, like slick, aged wood that could crack with just a touch. A rusted hook is lodged in its base, a reminder of how the blue marlin that donned it was eventually bested.

The bill didn't belong to any ordinary fish. It belonged to the fish-one that forever changed South Carolina's bluewater fishery. What can better inspire those with the itch to venture offshore than the storied wildness of a blue marlin? The only thing that carries greater weight is the hard proof that she was even there, and that she could indeed be caught.

South Carolina's history with blue marlin fishing is rather young. And I was promptly confronted with this fact when I came to realize that some of the people who were there to witness it are still around to tell us about it. For those of us who find community here among South Carolina's offshore fishermen, we have the incredible honor of still being able to touch our history, to physically hear the voices of those who saw it all unfold firsthand. They're not echoes from the past; they're right here on the docks, with a story to tell if we'd just listen.

GEORGETOWN, SOUTH CAROLINA: A FISHERY IS BORN