DATE: Sunday, November 9, 1997              TAG: 9710300644

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN

                                            LENGTH:   78 lines

THE THRILL OF REELING IN THE BIG ONE

On one level, it's about fish.

Whitecaps (Sterling House, 185 pp., $19.95), the spray-swept nautical novel by Outer Banks charter boat captain Danny Wadsworth, will inform the novice and reconfirm the professional.

The biggest fish always goes after the lightest line you're pulling.

To wear a fish out faster, maneuver the boat to keep it swimming against the current.

You can't catch fish when there are bananas aboard.

(If you dispute the first statement, you're a novice for certain; if you dispute the third, you're a hopeless dry-lander.)

But lore aside, Whitecaps captures well the sheer unbridled excitement of pursuing Pisces.

Splash! A large wahoo went ballistic! The aggressive fish jumped in a wide arch and crashed teeth-first on a horse-ballyhoo rigged behind an orange and black plastic lure.

Holy mackerel.

Strike two:

Its thick back was cobalt blue. Bright sunlight glistened on its silvery white flanks, highlighting the lavender vertical stripes on the marlin's broad side. The mammoth hulk fell back into the ocean, shattering the surface with a colossal splash.

``It's a thrill to hear that reel sing,'' reports angler-author Wadsworth from his home in Tappahannock, Va. ``It's even more of a thrill if you're watching the baits troll behind the boat. When a strike occurs, it's something you'll remember a long time.''

He should know. Wadsworth, 46, spends his weekends taking folks into the Gulf Stream after trophy fish. His 51-foot Ricky Scarborough ``Point Runner'' works out of Pirate's Cove in Manteo, N.C.

Mondays through Fridays, Wadsworth owns and manages pop-music radio station WRAR-AM and FM in Tappahannock and hosts a morning show to boot. The connection between his conduct on the air and on the water is an ability to relate to people from all walks of life. Like that other engagingly garrulous broadcaster, the late Arthur Godfrey, Wadsworth speaks to one person at a time; but if he speaks to that person long enough, chances are the person will end up on deck, braced behind a wide reel, connected to a harness.

Rick kept a tight grip on the rocking rod as the marlin streaked off again and Bull watched helplessly, hoping the line would hold. Art removed his cap and spoke in awe, ``Captain, I've never seen anything like that before. That fish is every bit of 1,200 pounds . . . maybe more!''

On another level, it's about fishermen. And fisherwomen. Young Bull Sullivan, sidelined from football with a rotator cuff injury and having dropped out of the pre-med program at East Carolina University, sets about becoming first mate on a charter boat docked near Nags Head.

He encounters life, love and an abundance of yellowtail tuna.

``The book,'' says Wadsworth, ``was a way to introduce offshore sport fishing to people who may never have tried it.''

Indeed, he makes the adventure mighty attractive. Fish on the flat-line! Blitz in the surf!

But Wadsworth is also clear that big water provides grave hazards. People drown. One episode, about a tourist family at the mercy of a storm-roiled outbound tide in an overturning paddleboat, is based on an actual rescue he once performed on the Chesapeake Bay.

An infant child who disappeared instantly beneath the steel-gray waves was saved by his young father - both of whom were saved by Wadsworth.

Wadsworth's account of a tug-of-war between a stubborn fishing crew and a possessive mako shark for a giant bluefin also has its basis in fact.

``The contest ended in a draw,'' he notes. ``We got most of the fish, but the shark took away a sizable chunk. Even then, without the tail and buckets of blood, what was left of the 10-foot tuna weighed in at 357 pounds.''

I said this was a fish story.

Which is why, on the supra-aquatic level, it's also about angels.

Wadsworth has Jamaican tournament observer Thomas Eubank confide: ``In my homeland, dere is ancient belief . . . dat when a good man dies at sea, his spirit will dere remain to watch over future generations.''

In sudden weather and heavy seas, the author reminds us, seasoned sailors and the rest of us need all the help we can get. MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia

Wesleyan College.

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