Boatman of Year is 'black sheep'
Fishing trips are few for Mike Firestone
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

COURTESY PHOTO Heave ho! The job is not without its hazards. Port Aransas Boatmen, Inc. Boatman of the Year Mike Firestone, in slickers, at the end of a Gulf of Mexico storm that tossed 70-knot winds and 20-foot waves at his boat.

Mike Firestone calls himself the black sheep of Port Aransas Boatmen Inc., even though he's been voted the 2007 Boatman of the Year.

The reason? Unlike most other members of the organization, Firestone isn't a dedicated local angler.

"My background is really in sailing boats," he said. Firestone graduated from college and began delivering and racing sailboats all over the world. From there, he gravitated toward becoming a marine surveyor, an expert who inspects boats that are up for sale.

That doesn't mean Firestone's never caught a fish. Among his earliest memories is one of a trip into the Gulf of Mexico out of Galveston, sponsored by a friend, where "everybody was seasick, including the man who brought me."

And when you spend that much time on the water, naturally you're going to catch your share of fish. A man's gotta eat, after all.

Fish finders Mike Firestone, center, with crew on a relatively rare fishing expedition. He calls himself the 'black sheep' of Port Aransas Boatmen Inc. because he seldom gets the chance to go fishing, though he spends much of his time aboard vessels.

"We make ceviche right there on the boat, and I've had some pretty memorable fresh fish meals on boats," Firestone reported.

"I've caught tuna, dolphin, wahoo - everything off the back of a sailboat, including a marlin that we caught off the coast of Africa that we boated.

"I've broken off a ton of billfish," he said.

"It's hard to stop a sailboat and back down on a fish when you have it on," he explained.

He also recalled taking a sailboat from Hong Kong to Honolulu and doing some fishing en route.

"We rarely had an actual rod and reel aboard, so we used hand lines," he said. "I had about 100-pound (test) line and was using surgical tubing as a shock absorber for the strikes. As we approached Hawaii, they were breaking that line and straightening out those big stainless steel hooks.

Board breaker An avid surfer, Mike Firestone, right, broke this board while riding waves in El Salvador.

"When we got there I asked about it, and they laughed. They showed me some 300-pound test line and monster hooks, and said the yellowfin tuna hitting my rig were just tearing it up."

Black sheep or not, Firestone's pedigree in Port Aransas Boatmen Inc. isn't to be sneezed at. He was introduced to the organization nearly a decade ago by then-president Wyatt Harris, who Firestone calls "one of the greatest Boatmen, in my opinion," when the two lived next door to each other.

"I got into the Boatmen with Wyatt's help because I liked the camaraderie we had going with the professional captains we had back then. It was a really interesting group of guys. The community service projects, especially distributing the scholarships for the high school seniors - that's the highlight of the year for me. I love reading the essays and being on the committee that selects the recipients. The last few years, I've been able to attend the ceremony and be the spokesman for the Boatmen.'

As a marine surveyor, Firestone figures he spends about half his time out of town. Yet, ironically, it was the Port Aransas ambiance that brought him here in the first place.

"It's the small town atmosphere," he said. "We brought three boys up here, and they all graduated from high school here. My wife, Lydia, is very supportive and puts up with me very well."

The other reason the Firestones came to Port Aransas?

"My number one passion is surfing. It's kind of a cat-andmouse game - I look at the weather and try to schedule my appointments around that."

Ironically, though he spends much of his life on the water, that doesn't afford Firestone much of a chance to fish.

"Half of the boats I survey are sportfishermen or yachts," he said. "But when I'm doing that, it's all business."

There are good memories of being on the water.

"Catching that marlin's gotta rank right up there, and I think completing my first Atlantic crossing," he recalled. "We sailed past the Rock of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. I looked to port and I could see Gibraltar, and off to the starboard about 8 miles away I could see the Atlas Mountains of Africa. I remember standing there with a cup of coffee - it was kind of chilly - thinking about all the boats, going back to the Romans and Phoenicians, that had sailed through that same strait.

"If you've never been through the Panama Canal, it's really exciting. It's amazing to think that they built that canal back at the turn of the century and it's still in operation. It's an amazing engineering feat."