The Outer Limits
By: SUZANNE GANNON
Saltwater runs through Britton Shackelford’s veins. For 17 years, the 38-year-old captain has introduced clients to the pitch and roll of sportfishing off North Carolina’s legendary Outer Banks, one reel at a time. He’s perpetuating an angling tradition begun by Ernal Foster, the grandfather of big gamefishing, and his Albatross fleet, in the 1930s in Hatteras Village—60 miles south of Shackelford’s home base in Manteo.
Shackelford, who twice placed in Manteo’s Pirate’s Cove Billfish Tournament and once in the Mid-Atlantic 500 in Cape May, New Jersey, was voted Mate of the Year in 1999. He earned his captain’s license in 1992 and bought his first boat in 1999. Five years later, in 2004, he commissioned Buddy Harris of Marshallburg, North Carolina, and Patrick Harrison of Manteo to build the Doghouse, a 61-foot, custom Carolina Sportfisherman featuring a soaring, curved bow, known as the Carolina flare.
He says at least a third of his bookings are corporate outings and business owners entertaining clients: “It’s the fastest growing segment of my business.”
“What I really enjoy, and what I pass on to my clients, is that you really participate in the fishing,” says Andy Rich, president of AJR Mortgage in Richmond, Virginia, who’s fished off the Doghouse six times, once bringing in a white marlin. “Britton wants you to get hands-on.”
“A lot of captains want to throw fish up on the dock,” he continues. “Britton wants you to have a better experience.” Like Sambo Tillett, Fred Basnight, and Joe Berry, early pioneers who in the 1940s and 1950s docked round-sterned boats called Spur, Slow-n-Easy, and Phyllis Mae in the nooked-and-crannied waters of Dykstra’s and Wanchese, Shackelford navigates the dicey chop of the Oregon Inlet five or six days a week. In the winter and early spring he docks in Hatteras.
From the bridge, he trolls the waters where the southbound Labrador Current meets the warmer Gulf Stream in search of yellowfin tuna, wahoo, bluefin tuna, king mackerel, mako shark, and blue marlin. Clients pay about $1,400 for a day on the boat—and a chance to sit in the fighting chair.
“I have groomed our clientele to appreciate a nice boat and the effort put forth,” says Shackelford, who was raised in a 300-year-old fishing family on a tiny backwater of the Chesapeake in Gloucester, Virginia. “My mindset is to get the last one. That’s how I grew up.”
According to the American Sportfishing Association, recreational fishing accounts for $116 billion annually and includes an estimated 44 million anglers. The annual income of the typical recreational angler exceeds that of the average U.S. citizen, and one-third of all anglers are women, who, as a group, are slightly more inclined toward saltwater than fresh.
“I don’t golf, so I’ve got to have another outlet,” says Cynthia Perrow, a Doghouse client who sells building supplies for CK Supply in Charleston, South Carolina. Perrow recently brought her Owens Corning vendor and a group of contractors aboard the Doghouse.
On another outing, Perrow achieved “a meat slam”—a dolphin, a wahoo, and a 32-pound tuna, all in one trip. “You have no choice but to relax,” she says.
The stars are still out at 5 a.m. when Shack, as he’s known, arrives at the dock in Wanchese one November morning, all business. First mate Sean Broaddus, who has arrived by about 4:30 and has worked for Shackelford for more than three seasons, has already loaded the bait locker with frozen ballyhoo—miniature marlins with needle-like bills—and rigged the tackle. In the course of the day, the party will fish more than 10 custom rods, including the outriggers, each with a $750 Shimano Tiagra trolling reel and 80-pound test line.
After a quick but thorough safety lecture that ends in a firm recap for the dozing and the distracted, Shackelford guns his twin Caterpillar diesels, and the Doghouse heads out of the marina and down Pamlico Sound, under the Oregon Inlet Bridge, through the inlet, and into the ocean.
While the engines roar and a ribbon of churning, foaming wake trails behind him, Shackelford is busy on the high-frequency radio, swapping fish tales and coordinates with captains as far away as Venezuela. Gannets, birds who feed on baitfish in these waters in the winter months, are bobbing as he heads east, the sky ahead already aglow in early light.
An hour and a half later and more than 30 miles out, a flaming red disk slips onto the horizon, and the chatter comes to a halt. Shackelford leads the morning blessing, a tradition begun by fisherman Omie Tillett. He asks for protection of the boats and their passengers, and for a good catch.
“Thank you for letting us do what we love to do every day,” he says.
Shackelford arrives at a spot south of the inlet where depths range from 300 to 1,000 feet. It’s time to fish. According to Broaddus, he will work the ledge back and forth all day long.
Six-to-eight-foot swells have a way of making 50-footers look like toy boats in a turbulent bath tub. But Shackelford is undeterred, maneuvering the boat to where his instincts—and his GPS, radar, and Loran—tell him the yellowfin are schooling.
“One second you can look across to the horizon, and the next, it’s a wall of water,” says David Wallace, general manager of Industrial Products & Services based in Hartsville, South Carolina, who’s fishing with David Miles, executive manager of Sonic Automotive Holdings in Columbia, South Carolina.
“When you take a client fishing, it’s something they remember forever,” says Miles. “You’re building a relationship.” Though he has not yet caught a bluefin, Miles says he “loves trying.”
A clip on an outrigger pops and the line starts screaming. Down on deck, Broaddus, quick and sure-footed in boots and waders, taps NASA computer engineer and first-timer Ed Scearce and hands him the rod. Scearce settles into the fighting chair and, with two hands, slips the rod into the gimbal.
It’s a slow burn. The fish is running, but Scearce manages to crank it slow and steady over the course of about five minutes. As soon as he sees the leader, Broaddus takes the line in one gloved hand and grabs the gaff hook with the other.
Soon, there’s a flash of frantic color beneath the surface, and the yellowfin is airborne, headed in over the transom on Broaddus’s gaff. He unhooks the fish, poses for a photo with a grinning Scearce, and stows the catch in a locker under a shovelful of ice.
By the fourth fish, the group knows the drill. When a fish hits, the next person in line gets ready for the fight, while Broaddus baits another hook.
“I need another ballyhoo,” he says.
He’s brought along his spicy, homemade fish cakes and offers them to his guests between fish.
Check out: Dog House Sportfishing
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