Old Salt: Chasing the Deep Blue – The Mike Canino Odyssey

The Early Years of Mike Canino: Discovering the Ocean’s Mysteries

A 19-year-old Mike Canino sat at the flybridge helm of his Bertram 28. Driven by twin gas engines, Canino and his school friends were ready to head offshore out of Galveston, Texas, for a day of king fishing. On the way out, the fishermen spotted a big poly ball buoy pulled through the water as if it were powered by a ghost from the deep. “We followed it; we were curious. When we got up to it, we tied off on the buoy. Then it started dragging us sideways. Forty-five minutes later, and after pulling us all around, the rope splice snapped. We never did find out what it was, but it told us the sea certainly had lots of stuff in it!” says Mike, who has spent much of his life chasing, catching and releasing the ocean’s greatest creatures: billfish.

From Fresh Produce to Professional Sportfishing: The Turning Point

Mike is an old salt that got a late start at age 38 as a professional sportfishing captain. You could say his professional career has been one turf and surf. Born in Houston, Texas, to Italian immigrant parents, Mike worked in the family’s fresh produce business from a young age. After returning home from service in World War II, his dad started truck farming in Houston, meaning he bought and sold fruits and vegetables from over 70 farmers in Harris and surrounding counties. Mike’s dad opened the Canino Produce Company in 1958 as a mom-and-pop shop, soon including his daughter and son, and set up the business at the front of the then Farmer’s Cooperative Marketing Association in the city’s Heights neighborhood. Today, this is the Houston Farmers Market.

“We’d go fishing in the summer. I remember being about eight years old and driving down to the Galveston Jetty or Trinity Bay to fish for trout and redfish. We had a 17-foot boat at the time. I’d go with my older brother Bill. Sometimes we’d venture out for kingfish,” says Mike. The family bought a 27-foot Scotty Craft next and took the boat down to Venice, Louisiana. It was from there that Mike and his brother had a trip planned to hook the teenager his first marlin. Severe weather doused those plans. But soon there was another opportunity on the horizon. Mike’s sister honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico. The family traveled to Mexico and, while there, chartered a boat to go sportfishing for the day.

“We showed up at the dock to go out, and there I was with my Cardinal 7 spinning rod and reel. The captain took one look and told me to put the rod up. He wouldn’t let me fish. We went out and my sister caught a sailfish on 100-pound test, with mullets rigged on a big J hook. I grabbed my rod, with 30-pound test, and almost immediately hooked up a Pacific sail. I fought it for an hour and a half. The captain couldn’t believe it. That hooked me on billfish,” he says.

The Evolution of a Sportfishing Career: Boats, Big Games, and Business

Mike’s experience in Mexico fueled his desire to get offshore. Back home in Texas, he got a Mako 21 outboard and would go 50 miles out looking for marlin. Back on shore, hard work in the fresh produce business fed his fishing habit. By this time, Mike was co-owner of Canino Produce and actively managed the day-to-day business. Business was good. He worked up to a 25-foot Robalo, then his Bertram 28. Days off were spent fishing and several day vacations were dedicated to tournaments.

In 1983, Mike bought a 1978-built Hatteras 36 with a buddy. It had a Bimini top. There was no radar, just LORAN-C for navigation. They called it the Drifter because the top speed was only 15 knots. Still, what it lacked in hustle it made up for in luck.

The Legendary 605-pound Marlin: A Test of Skill and Perseverance

“We caught a 605-pound marlin in the Freeport Texas Open,” Mike recalls. “We had fished an inshore tournament the week before and come in third. So we were feeling confident to enter the Open. When we left Freeport, it had rained so much that the water was green even 100 miles out. We kept going from there. There aren’t as many oil rigs past the 100-fathom curve. We were off the chart, 144 miles out at a place called the slipper. Remember, we had no radar. Well, it was out there that we hooked this monster.

“We got it to the boat but couldn’t put it in because there was no transom door. That night, we head back in and stop at one of the oil rigs to see if we could pay the guys to use their crane to put the fish in the boat. That didn’t work, so there we were dragging this big dead fish floating behind the boat. A shark came up at one point, but it left. We kept trying to wind it in until the winch for the rope burned out. After a while, it started getting rough. The seas got so rough that they helped wash the fish into the boat. That was 14 hours after we hooked it. So we only had one catch for that tournament, but it was a 605-pound blue marlin.”

Transitioning to a Sportfishing Captain

Mike took his first step out of the produce business in the early 1990s by becoming president and general manager of a company called Tropical Concepts Travel Agency. He oversaw the management and operation, which arranged diving and fishing charters. He led several of these charters and started building a clientele. In 1994, Mike officially traded his produce cap for a captain’s hat when he started chartering his Post 46, Abracadabra.

“The only reason I was working was to afford the boat,” Mike says. “So I decided to charter it. I hired a guy right out of college, Steve Smith, and we started doing boat shows together to get the boat known and book charters. I took it to Cozumel, and we chartered part of the year from there. I’d fly in for a week to fish and then have to fly back to work. Sometimes, I’d get into work on Sundays at 4 a.m. so I could get the 2:30 p.m. flight to Cozumel for just one day of fishing. I had the money, but I didn’t have the time. That killed me. It wasn’t long before I realized I was paying a guy to do what I wanted to do.”

From the Bahamas to the Pacific

The first year at the helm, Mike left Texas in October for Fort Lauderdale to fish. Then, in January, it was over to Cozumel until June. Tournaments in Louisiana and Texas filled the summer. “A friend of mine, Capt. Randy Jendersee, said he was going to be in Nassau, in the Bahamas, July 1. If I wanted to meet him there, I could go with him down to St. Thomas. So there was no king fishing in the Gulf for me that year.

“I took the Post and went to St. Thomas in 1994. I did a bunch of trips out of there. I didn’t make any money, but I didn’t spend money either. That trip gave me a taste for travel and a good idea of how much traveling costs. So when this guy comes up to me and tells me he wants me to take him and his Viking 58 around the world fishing, I sold the Post. The Pepe was my first private job. After two weeks, I knew why all captains drink,” he says.

Mike spent a year on Pepe fishing in Isla Mujeres, Cancun, Cozumel, Belize and up the Rio Dulce in Guatemala as well as southeast in St. Thomas and Venezuela. Then, he was back on the Post, winning Texas’ famous Poco Bueno tournament in 1996. The next year, he met Jerry Shanklin, whom he knew from Houston, at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in October. “Bertram had their 60-foot demo boat there. Jerry says he’d buy it if I ran it. So the deal was that I’d run my charters on his boat. He gave me a wad of money and off we went. That was the Huntress. We did The Bahamas, including the Treasure Cay International, Cozumel, a tournament in Mississippi, and in St. Thomas we won the Governor’s Cup Billfish Tournament with eight blue marlin released in three days. That was 1997,” he says.

Next, Mike took over the helm of the 44-foot Buddy Davis Express, the Gotcha, for Buddy Schultz. Texas, then St. Thomas and Venezuela was the annual circuit they fished from 1998 to 2001.

“Venezuela was incredible. I remember being off the La Guaira Bank. I thought we were going to hit bottom when the sea floor looked like it was coming up fast. Instead, it was all the bait. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. “The other thing I remember is that when we arrived in Venezuela, we were told that the fishing was slow. The first day out, we caught a double slam.”

Unforgettable Moments and World Records: Life on the Gotcha

It was a tuna rather than billfish that made for a great fish tale from Mike’s days on the Gotcha in Venezuela. It was the day after a 200-pound-plus tuna on 20-pound test broke off at the last minute that Mike decided to run a center rigger out with squid in case of a similar bite. Sure enough, what looked like a huge hole in the water turned out to be a massive tuna. Mike backed up, the mates reeled in the teasers, and angler Taylor Norris fought the fish hard for 45 minutes, hoping it wouldn’t dive deep. Slowly but surely, two cranks of the reel at a time, the mates finally were able to gaff the fish.

“We kept fishing after that. At about 2:30 p.m. we got a call on the radio from Dave Noling on the Courtesan (48-foot Garlington). They were fishing for a world-record blue marlin on light tackle, had a catch and were looking for someone with a certified weighmaster scale. I had one, so we went over to meet them. We popped the fish on, and it was 12 pounds short of a record. While we had the scale out, we figured we’d weigh our tuna. Turns out it was 277 pounds. The new world record.”

New Ventures and Challenges: The Impact of Global Events on Sportfishing

Once off the Gotcha, Mike headed back to Texas to decide his next move. One opportunity was to fish off Africa with legendary angler, Dr. Terry Tri, known for multiple billfishing royal and grand slams. Instead, Mike decided to try one more time to go alone as a charter owner-operator. His thought was to circle between Venezuela, getting the spring and fall bite in this South American country, and St. Thomas for the summer marlin run. The world, and Mike’s future, changed extremely fast on September 11, 2001.

“No one came, no one was traveling. I put the boat up for sale. Then, a guy tells me he wants to go to Los Sueños. It’s a weird deal. He’ll pay me to take people out. So I left Galveston and 14 days later arrived in Costa Rica. It was my first time there. On the first day out, we went 18/26 on sailfish with circle hooks. It was crazy. I started calling folks and bookings came in. I should have been in real estate instead. Everyone who had a slip there also bought a condominium,” he says.

The Continued Success of Mike Canino

Today, Mike is still in Los Sueños. In the intervening years, he helmed the 58 Garlington, Miss Behavin, fishing in both Costa Rica and Panama as well as participating in Marlin University. He also ran the 50-foot Craig Blackwell, Family & Friends, in these same two Pacific angling hot spots. In 2013, Family & Friends, with Canino driving, won the Presidential Challenge of Costa Rica by releasing seven sailfish and a striped marlin. He still heads back to Texas for tournaments, including the annual Lone Star Shootout.

“It took 45 years for me to get to the Pacific. The rainy season is September to October, so it’s easily 10 months a year of no rain and smooth seas for charters,” Mike says. “The sea is full of all kinds of fish. It’s like a zoo on land too. From my apartment window, I can see toucans and monkeys and there are crocodiles by the bridge. It’s wonderful.”

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