Does the old man exhibit skills, strength, and smarts in The Old Man and the Sea?

Santiago is a wise old fisherman who loves the sea, which he fondly calls "la mar." When he ventures out on the eighty-fifth day of having caught no fish, this poor man has the simplest of equipment. He is, however, very skilled and experienced.
The old man is equipped with two fresh albacores (tunas), which hang on his two deepest lines. On the other lines, he has "a big blue runner" (also known as a bluefish) and a yellow jack. These fish are known to be eaten by marlins. Santiago has the lines, which are thick as pencils, looped onto

a green-sapped stick so that any pull or touch on the bait would make the stick dip (like a bobber) and each line had forty-fathom coils which could be made fast to the other spare coils so that, if it were necessary, a fish could take out over three hundred fathoms of line. (31)

Clearly, he is going after big fish, probably a marlin. While Santiago has primitive equipment compared to what marlin fishermen use today, he has his skills acquired over his many years of fishing to assist him. First of all, he watches the sky and the water. He knows when he sees birds diving into the water that they are feeding on a school of fish, and soon a big fish may come along to feed, too. When Santiago sees a man of war bird, he says aloud, "He's got something. . . . He's not just looking." (33) This is a clever strategy.
As a skilled fisherman, Santiago watches his line and waits until "he felt the gentle touch on the line, and he was happy" because he knows the fish is going to take the bait. When he feels the heavy weight of a fish, Santiago lets more line out, but he does not allow any slack in the line (slack could cause him to lose his fish)—"the pressure of his thumb and finger were almost imperceptible." His experience has taught him just the right touch.

He knew what a huge fish this was. . . . At that moment he felt him stop moving but the weight was still there. Then the weight increased and he gave more line. He tightened the pressure of his thumb and finger for a moment and the weight increased and was going straight down."He's taken it," he said. "What a fish. . . . He has it [the line of bait] sideways in his mouth now, and he is moving off with it." (43)

Now Santiago knows that he has the marlin securely on his line. He hopes that the hook will puncture the marlin's heart; that would cause the marlin to rise to the surface, and then Santiago could harpoon him. But the fish does not surface. Santiago does not have enough strength to pull the great fish out, either. So the fish swims for hours, and there is nothing Santiago can do but brace the line across his back. The old man endures this line on his back for hours—which clearly demonstrates his strength.
After a long time, the fish suddenly lurches and pulls the old man down onto the bow. It would have pulled him overboard, but Santiago braces himself and gives the fish more line. The old man endures for two days and two nights as the marlin pulls him along. Finally, on the third day, the great fish circles the boat. Exhausted and almost delirious, Santiago somehow manages to pull the marlin onto its side and pierce it with his harpoon. Then, he ties it to his boat's side, and he tries to bring the great fish in, but sharks follow the blood trail and eat much of the marlin.
After Santiago returns, many other fishers go into the water, gathering around the boat to look at what was tied to it. One man measures the skeleton of what was a massive fish.