The man whose name has become almost synonymous with swordfish has the look of someone who has lived a lot of life and enjoyed every bit of it.
Stocky and of medium height, with a feral, reddish-blond goatee, week-old stubble on his cheeks and thinning, rusty-colored hair pulled back in a rubber band-bound ponytail, he faintly resembles Willie Nelson.
It’s debatable whether Peace Marvel lives in Pearl River or in Venice. He is domiciled in Pearl River, but spends 180 nights a year at his down-the-river camp.
His thing with Venice started with his 14-year senior brother taking him inshore and then snapper fishing out of the port.
“One day with him offshore at the 7-mile rigs, I saw about 10,000 tuna. Something clicked,” Marvel said.
His brother didn’t fish tuna, so when the younger brother was 20 years old, Marvel bought what he called his first “offshore boat” — a 20-foot bay boat.
“I fished tuna with that at the Midnight Lump,” Marvel chuckled. “I heard people on the radio say, ‘Lookit that dumb S.O.B. out here with a troll motor on his boat.’
“I was an LSU student — religious studies, creative writing and sociology. I took the stuff that I was interested in and avoided beginning my real life.”
He never finished those studies.
“I dropped out after five years, and bought and sold houses,” Marvel said. “I made just enough money to travel around the world and fish. I traveled Europe with a fly rod, backpack and guitar, and played music on the street to support my fishing.
“I lived in the Yukon for six months with my dog, and caught a lot of grayling and Dolly Varden trout — all kinds of trout. I made several trips to Canada, and I fished all over the United States.
“I spent a little time in Mexico, but when I travel and fish, I fish cold water. I mean why would I travel to fish blue water when I have the best right here.”
Soon enough, however, life dictated a change.
“… (A)t 29, I got married,” Marvel said. “I was going to have to swing either a hammer or a fishing rod for a living. I chose the fishing rod and founded Reel Peace Charters.
“My specialty was tuna. I have been obsessed with tuna since I was 10 years old. Now I’m obsessed with swordfish.”
Then another infatuation intruded on his fishing — music. He was promised a music publishing deal with Warner Brothers in Nashville, so he sold Reel Peace Charters in 2006.
“I started playing guitar at 13 to get girls,” Marvel grinned. “It was too hard to learn other people’s songs, so I decided to write my own.
“I played at the Bluebird Café, a Nashville landmark for songwriters.”
Marvel alternated, spending two weeks in Nashville with music and two weeks in Venice fishing as a captain for the company he had sold.
But the publishing deal finally fell through, and he returned to Louisiana to found PeaceKeeper Charters in 2008, after his two-year no-compete clause expired.
In following the beat of his own drummer, Peace Marvel has had one other major diversion in his adult life.
“Horses — oh yeah,” he said ruefully. “I lost about $100,000 on that. I bought Irish draught horses in Ireland and brought them to Henleyfield, Miss. I’ve had horses a large percentage of my life. Irish draught horses are good hunter-jumpers, and are gentle and calm. And they are from my ancestral home. I bred them, trained them and sold them.
“My plan was to have some cool horses and maybe make some money. But I was spread too thin with music and fishing.”
Music is still a part of his life.
“I still enjoy music,” Marvel said. “I still play and write today. But I’ve never been driven to do anything like I’m driven to fish.”
The drive to fish has made Marvel one of the leaders in offshore fishing innovation. He was the first to recreationally catch swordfish at night in 2004. He was active in the development of summertime live-bait fishing for tuna after his friend Dan Luke invented it.
And he was the first to bring in Bomber CD 30 trolling lures for wahoo. The lure was designed as a freshwater lure for striped bass.
Marvel also was the first offshore charter captain to carry bean bag chairs.
And, recently, he has gotten a lot of attention for home canning blackfin tuna flesh in a pressure cooker.
Marvel was active in popularizing fishing on the Lump (aka Sackett Bank), which he said, “I kind of regret.”
He is quick to admit though, that there were others on the Lump before him, among them commercial fishermen and the Ballay brothers.
Now he is focused on daytime swordfish fishing.
“Customers were hard to come by,” Marvel admitted. “Then a salesman from Lindgren-Pitman, a commercial fishing equipment maker, came down and showed some of the Venice captains how to catch them in the daytime on electric reels.
“They were successful, so it became easier to talk some of my customers into trying it.”
Ever the maverick, however, Marvel doesn’t use electric reels.
“They are an amazing fish,” he said. “That’s why we honor them by fighting them with stand-up fishing gear, and not sitting on our butt and pushing a button.”
