The central storyline in The Big One involves a striper crammed with lead weights. That controversy reminded derby champ Keith McArt of his first derby, when he caught a fish with an unnatural accessory of its own.
In 1999, standing on a pier in the bitter cold at 3 a.m., Keith saw his rod bend. He fought the fish in close and muscled it over the rail. (He was new to surfcasting; a pro would’ve walked it back to shore rather than risk the line breaking.) Just as Keith got the fish up and over the railing, it threw the hook. Keith and his fishing buddy jumped on the thing before it could flop back to safety, and quickly realized this was no ordinary bluefish.
“At some point in its life, it swam through a rubber gasket which got stuck around its head just behind the gill plate,” Keith said. “It had been there long enough that it had grown partially into its skin.”
Keith can’t remember how the derby brass dealt with that bit of strangeness. Today, they would probably weigh the fish with the gasket intact because it was part of the fish when he caught it, and Keith thinks that’s how they handled it back in 1999. Anyway, it was the second-biggest bluefish that day, and Keith’s little brush with glory helped convert him into a derby fanatic. “If my family had known what that would spark, I think they would have thrown it back while I was sleeping,” he wrote.
The fever that bluefish sparked is illustrated perfectly by the picture Keith sent me. “This,” he explained, “was a bit of my shock for my mother when she went to take a shower in the morning during the 59th derby.”
This was his first big fish, a 42.46-pound striper that won the shore division of the 2004 derby. He knew it had a shot at taking the lead, but only if he kept it from drying out. And since it was too big for his cooler he put it in the tub instead. This is the sort of thinking that passes for logic during the five weeks of the derby.
Keith reports that his pregnant wife is due Oct. 1, smack in the middle of the derby. He’s got a plan: “Gonna have to pay the doc to induce her about 2-3 weeks early 
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(Thanks to Keith for being the first angler to send me a fish story. A signed copy of The Big One is on the way to his house. Got a tale of your own? Email it to me using the “Share Your Stories” link to the left. I’ll post as many stories as I can, and the best of the bunch will get a copy of the book.)
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