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Lt. Col. John Calvert Jr. with 280-pound halibut |
BY CARDEN HEDELT
Marine Lt. Col. John Calvert Jr. was lagging behind his father and four other members of his fishing group off the Alaskan coast last week when a deckhand offered some helpful advice.
As the deckhand pulled in the boat's 11th halibut, one of the fish's eyes fell out. He handed it to Calvert and told him eating it would bring good luck.
"As a Marine, I wasn't going to say no to a challenge, so I opened the hatch and swallowed it like a horse pill," said Calvert, a 39-year-old Stafford County father of four who works in acquisition programs management at Quantico Marine Corps Base.
"Everyone else caught their two-fish limit, and I didn't want to be the only one left out. I thought that one little eyeball couldn't hurt."
Around 4 p.m. June 30, on his last cast of the day, Calvert pulled in a 280-pound halibut, the largest out of Homer, Alaska, this season.
"I thought I hooked the bottom at first, and I told the rest of the guys that
After a one-hour battle with the fish, Calvert's boat raced back to harbor. During their three-hour trip, Calvert remembered eating the eye before his fateful cast.
"We were recounting what happened when I finally put two and two together," Cal-vert said.
Calvert weighed the 80-inch-long halibut only 45 minutes before the scales closed for the day. Because Calvert made the 9 p.m. deadline, he won a $1,000 monthly prize in the Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby.
"I wasn't sure that we were going to make it, but we made it just in time," he said. "When we beat the clock like we did, I had to wonder if we didn't have some kind of luck on our side."
Calvert is also now the overall leader in the five-month derby that ends Sept. 30. He stands to turn his good fortune into a small fortune if his halibut remains the largest fish caught. Last year's winner, Duane Olson of Anchorage, took home $43,612.
Although the superstition worked once for Calvert, he doesn't plan to make fish eyes a regular part of his diet.
"I wouldn't recommend it," Calvert said. "If you're having really bad fishing, then maybe. But I wouldn't do it again."
Carden Hedelt
Email: chedelt@freelancestar.com
