Chapter Two

 By the age of twenty-three, Ellis had his own boat, the Cape Ann, and his own charter business, bringing wealthy men out to the banks for the sport of fighting and landing a bluefin tuna. For, by then, word had gotten around that if you wanted to test your mettle against nature, fighting a thousand-pound bluefin for two or three hours was one way to do it.

In those days, when the fish were still plentiful, Ellis was the man to see. He had an uncanny knack for knowing where the great fish swam in the warm summer months. Men came up from New York, men flocked in from the mainland of Massachusetts, they came down from Maine, and they flew in from America’s heartland to hire Captain Ellis.

His fishing haunt was the Middle Bank, also known as Stellwagen Bank. Stellwagen is now a marine sanctuary…