Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1524
I hoped that he would weigh a hundred pounds and cautioned Peter to make sure at the gaff. When hauled aboard this fish presented a most beautiful sight. He was a yellow-fin tuna, not to be confounded with the Australian and Western Pacific tunny; and the opal and blue and gold colors, blending in a dazzling effect, as bright as sunlight on jewels, were so lovely that it seemed a shame to kill their possessor.
But this was a valuable catch, much more important than any size or species of swordfish. I was simply delighted.
In my correspondence for three years with Australian anglers and market fishermen I had been told of vast schools of large round blue fish that had been sighted offshore in July and August. These fish had been sighted, but not classified. I concluded they were tuna, and with this lucky catch I had verified my opinion.
Yellow-fin tuna furnish California with one of its big commercial assets — a fifty-million-dollar-a-year canned-tuna industry. There are floating canneries on the sea and canneries on shore. San Pedro, a thriving town, depends upon the tuna catch. For thirty years this business has been increasing. Large boats have been built, with refrigeration machinery and huge storage capacity, and these vessels ply far in pursuit of the schools of tuna. In 1927, when I found yellow-fin tuna at the Galapagos Islands, and showed motion pictures to verify it, the Japanese and American fleets were hot after these fresh schools. Five hundred tons of tuna, at a hundred dollars a ton, meant big profit.
Australian commercial interests have something to think about. It can be depended upon — these yellow-fin tuna are more and more in demand. Japanese ships now come clear to the Californian and Mexican coasts, and down off South America. It will be a close run to Australian waters.
The extent and abundance of this annual migration of yellow-fin tuna off the South Coast should be ascertained; and the result might well be a tremendous business for Australians, and what is more, a valuable and inexpensive food supply bound to take place of the more expensive meats. In the United States the consumption of fish as food has increased forty per cent in the last ten years.
CHAPTER V
CROSSING THE RIVER on the ferry at Bateman Bay, from which the wonderful Toll Gates can be seen out at sea, I conceived an idea that this place had marvelous potentialities for fishing. As a matter of fact, the place haunted me so that I went back, motored all around the bay, walked out upon the many wooded capes that projected far out toward the sentinel Toll Gates, patrolled the curved sandy beaches, and finally interviewed the market fishermen. The result was that I broke camp at Bermagui and chose a lovely site three miles out from Bateman Bay, where we pitched camp anew. It turned out that the vision in my mind’s eye had been right. This camp was the most beautiful and satisfactory of all the hundreds of camps I have had in different countries. How it will turn out from a fishing standpoint remains to be seen. But I would like to gamble on my instinct.
I fished all the way up from Bermagui, and the distance must have been all of fifty miles. I trolled a good-sized bonito for eight hours without a rise. The north-east breeze had freshened the day, and at four o’clock the sea was ridged white and blue. It was rough enough to make me hold on to my chair with one hand and my rod in the other. I wanted to take the first swordfish in to Bateman Bay.
There was a long cape to the north-west, standing far out into the ocean. It appeared we would never reach it. But at last we did, and saw the grand opening of Bateman Bay guarded by those noble Toll Gates, great bare rocks, standing aloof and august, facing the sea, and shadowed with the western sunset lights.
It was with most unusual excitement that I sighted the familiar and thrilling purple flashes of a swordfish back of my bait. “There he is!” And he had the bait, to swerve and speed away.
“Well, it’s about time. Nine hours!” called Peter, as he threw out the clutch. “Be sure you hook him.”
I made sure of that, and for half an hour, in a rough sea, I had a hard fight with a game fish. He almost got away. We were proud to run into the little cove we had renamed Crescent Bay, where my camp had been pitched while I fished the day through.
There was an enthusiastic crowd waiting, but nothing to the large and vociferous one that greeted us when we trucked the swordfish up to town. Most, in fact almost all, of the inhabitants had never seen a swordfish. The reception the townspeople gave me was second only to what they gave the fish. So my start at Bateman Bay was auspicious.
Then, following that lucky opening, we had bad weather. Days of storm! No sooner would it clear up and give us hope of sunshine and warmth when it blew again. From all directions!
We ran out almost every day, certainly the days that it was possible to fish. We did not see a swordfish. I was not discouraged at this, because I have learned that patience and endurance are imperative for a deep-sea fisherman. Besides, we occasionally hooked a shark, and really I wanted a big shark more keenly than a swordfish.
After ten days the weather cleared and grew warm. That very first morning, drifting with a bait deep off Black Rock, I had a magnificent strike which I was sure came from a black Marlin. He took the bait easily, slowly made off, began to go faster and faster, and rise to the surface, until Peter and I yelled for the inevitable jump. It did not come. That fish got rid of the hook without leaping or showing his size; and I was a bitterly disappointed angler.
I did not, however, have long to bemoan my bad fortune. The camera-boat hooked up with a fish, and I couldn’t miss that. There were always excitement and fun galore when my camera crew got hold of a fish. So I ran out to them. It would be quite beyond me to describe adequately what I witnessed. I shall record it in Bowen’s terms:
“Gus Bagnard, my second camera man, was most eager to catch a swordfish. From his conversation I was sure that he thought it a simple matter, merely a case of tossing a bait overboard and pulling in the fish.
“He had been on the camera boat the day that I conceived the idea that if two teasers were good, more would be better. The idea may have been all right, but the execution was terrible. The extra teasers were tied with cord that had long since outlived its usefulness, and consequently kept breaking.
“A pleasant morning was had by all, in circling about, netting lost teasers. It was because of this that Gus hooked his swordfish.
“A teaser dropped off on the windward side and the boatman, forgetting all about the trailing lines, cut back so sharply that lines and teaser cords were twisting and twirling about, making a grand tangle. They missed the teaser on the first attempt at it, and again the boatman swung sharply, again not helping matters in the least. This occurred several times, and mind you the sea was quite rough. Suddenly I, who had been most busy keeping my bait from fouling, sighted a swordfish some distance in back. I yelled at Gus, whose bait was twisting around one of the teasers, to clear his line. Gus was making frantic effort to do so when the fish came up directly under his bait and swallowed it without ceremony.
“For some inexplicable reason Gus’s line pulled free from the teaser and ran out with a mighty zip. In his excitement Gus forgot to keep enough tension on his reel and line was pouring all over the place. I jumped to his aid and between us we managed to pull out the loose overrun line, for the fish had by now conveniently stopped. Things were well in hand — that is except for the lost teaser which the boatman was still seeking. ‘Stop the boat!’ I yelled. Whether my voice did not carry or whether the boatman was going to get the teaser or bust, I never shall know, but at any rate they kept on, slowly of course, while the fish merely sulked on top of the water, shaking his head and paying little or no attention to Gus, who was pulling for all he was worth to take the slack out of his line.
“‘Give me the harness!’ Gus yelled. Thereupon Andy, my camera man, brought forth the harness and proceeded to help Gus put it on. Maybe it was the swaying of the boat, a gust of wind, putting on the harness, or all three things, but at any rate Gus’s hat flew off his head and joined the teaser, which was floating by off the starboard.
“‘I’ve got it!’ yelled one of the boatmen, coming up with a dip net full of teaser. Just then the fish grew tired of this horseplay and made a wild rush out to sea. The boatman started after him, when Gus screamed, ‘Hey, don’t forget my hat!’
“I was laughing so hard by this time that I almost fell off the boat. The boatman, drawn between two evils, chose the lesser one and went after the hat. Gus was trying to keep a tight line on the fish while at the same time he was twisted around like an ostrich, in attempting to keep track of his hat.
“It might have been all right if the fish had continued to go one way and the boat the other, but just about the time they were nearing the hat, the fish looped back and came swimming towards the boat. The movement of the boat kept the line taut, but the fish in making the circle had evidently slacked enough of the line to free himself from the hook.
“‘Here it is!’ yelled the boatman as he dipped up the droopy hat. ‘All right,’ stated Gus, with relief. ‘Now I’ll show you how to catch this fish.’ He reeled in hard and fast. Poor Gus, how he must have felt when he saw a baitless hook come dancing over the water. Anyway, he got his hat, the boatman got his teaser, and the rest of us got a laugh.”
Following that event of the camera crew I trolled around and on out for an hour, when we discovered the other boat in trouble again. This time it proved to be Bowen who had gotten himself fast to a heavy fish. As soon as we had ascertained that, we trolled on, circling his boat at a goodly distance. As Brown did not make any apparent headway with this fish, we ran over again, to find him in sore straits.
That boat was not a comfortable one from which to fight a fish which had sounded deep. The chairs were wrong. There was a high railing on the stern which made it hazardous when a fish worked round astern. A sudden rush would snap the rod. If the fish sheered under the boat — well, then it was goodnight. Bowen was hunched on the side, his rod on the gunwale, the tip wagging, and the line stretched like a banjo string. Gus held him by the belt to keep him from being pulled overboard. In truth, he was in a grievous state, one I had suffered a thousand times. And it gave me a feeling of glee. I called through my megaphone:
“Ed, you’ve been on that fish two hours.”
“Yaas!” bawled Bowen. “That’s no news to me. What’s it to you?”
“Your face is fearfully red and wet. Your shirt is coming off. And your efforts are appreciably ineffectual.”
“Are you telling me?” yelled Ed, frantically. “Go ‘way!”
“But you are doing a lot of things wrong,” I protested.
“Oh, I am! Ha! Ha! For instance what?”
“If you want to hold a fish in that position or stop him, take hold of the line with both hands. If you can’t do either, let him have line — let him run off so you can straighten up — rest your arms — give him a chance to come to the surface, so you can have a different leverage.”
“Aw! — look at that! He’s taking line, millions of yards! — How ‘n hell will I ever reel him back?”
“Ed, listen,” I called. “You don’t reel a fish up. You pump him with the rod to get slack line — then you reel that...But I’m afraid this fish is too much for you. He’s licked you.”
“He has — not!” panted Ed, wildly. “I’ve got him licked, only he won’t come up...Besides, it’s no fish, I tell you. It’s a whale or something.”
“Ed, you betray every evidence of late hours, and cigarettes, the bottle, and in fact a misspent life...”
“Go ‘way!” shouted Bowen. “You’ll make me so weak I’ll lose him.”
Bowen always claimed my advice would make him lose his fish. Wherefore I discreetly ran off, and trolled for two hours. Upon my return they had his fish tied up to the boat — a shark, of black hue and ferocious aspect, and of heavy frame. I did not know what kind it was.
“Hey there!” pealed out Ed, happily. “I got him! I got him! I licked the son-of-a-gun. Thanks for telling me what to do. Never would have licked him. Gee! but wasn’t it a fight. I’m crippled. I’m dying!!! I think I’m dead...What kind of a shark is it?”
“Blowed if I know,” I replied, “But he’s a handsome brute, big as all outdoors, and a real catch. Congratulations.”
This shark was indeed an important catch for us. It was a whaler and weighed over six hundred pounds.
On the following day, about sixteen miles offshore, out in a warm current that registered seventy-three degrees, I saw an enormous ghost-like shark that made my heart leap to my throat. He was twenty feet long and very deep, and he certainly was not afraid of the boat or its occupants. I let my bait out to him. It appeared to me that he not only ignored the offering, but was contemptuous of such a small bait. His eye was big, black, and gleaming with all the cold cruelty of nature. I knew that he saw me and would have taken me had I fallen out of that boat. For an hour after he faded away I was in a trance. I recovered after a time, but I will never cease to long to hook and whip and kill such a grand and terrible shark. Opinions on my boat differed. He was a tiger, or a huge whaler. But for me he was one of those monsters of the South Seas — the white death shark.
On the third clear morning, with a warm sun and a light north-east breeze, I felt sure that we would have luck. Peter said fish ought to be in. We found bait plentiful and hungry. While fishing around Black Rock I saw a Marlin jump. We got teasers and bait overboard in a hurry, and I trolled there for an hour, without raising him.
Meanwhile Bowen and his crew had run outside four or five miles. When I finally ran up to them they had a swordfish tied up to the boat. It had been caught by Mr. Stewart, a guest of Bowen’s that day, and was his first one after many attempts. He appeared to be mute in his delight, but Bowen was gay and volatile enough.
“Say,” he shouted, “you should have seen this Marlin commit suicide. Why, nothing could lose him! The reel overran a dozen times and never tangled. Get a load of that, will you? He ran under the boat. The leader caught in the propeller and the fish came up on the other side. All our backs were turned. He tried to get aboard. When we gaffed him the hook fell out. Can you beat that for luck?”
No, I could not, and after congratulating Mr. Stewart I trolled on, marveling at the queer angles of this game. Late in the afternoon we turned to go in. The golden lights were shining over the ranges, the purple Toll Gates loomed grandly against the background. The day appeared to be about over.
“There’s a fin!” yelled Bill, suddenly. He was up on deck. “Far ahead and going fast.”
“Chase it,” I ordered. “Hook her up, Pete.”
We ran down current like the wind, everybody searching the big swells and white seas. We ran nearly half a mile before Bill sighted the fin again. Still ahead! We ran on, lost it again. Then Emil saw it on our left and we sped in that direction. We ran past the other boat. They yelled to us and pointed back to the right and we had to turn again. Peter saw him again and that encouraged us. He opened up the engine full ahead and we roared over the swells, leaving a white wake behind us.
“There he is!” shouted Peter, pointing. “Going like one thing!”
“Don’t run him down, Peter,” I said, as I caught my first glimpse of the big gleaming tail fin. “It’s a black Marlin.”
Peter slowed down. But we had to go at least at a ten-knot speed in order to come up with the fish. His tail went under, came up again, flashed opal and gold, vanished, to show once more.
Suddenly I saw that tail give a peculiar twitch — an action I had seen many times. I flashed my gaze back to my bait.
“He saw it! Look out!”
I venture to say that that fish traveled as fast as my sight. Because instantly there he was back of my bait. He snatched it and sheered off to the races. He ran four hundred yards on that strike, and when I hooked him he took off at least two hundred more. That was a long way off. The line was so tight I had to release the drag. We ran after him and it was quite awhile before I recovered a foot of line. He broke water twice, but did not leap.
Eventually we gained on him. In perhaps a quarter of an hour I recovered most of the line. Then he sounded. From that period I fought him an hour and ten minutes to fetch him to the surface.
He proved to be a short, broad, beautifully built black Marlin, deep purple in color, and remarkable for the shortest spear I ever saw on one of these fish. It was less than a foot in length and a perfect weapon. This black Marlin weighed around four hundred pounds, and was I glad to take him in to Bateman Bay?
CHAPTER VI
ONE OF MY strong reasons for coming to Bateman Bay, if not the strongest, was the fact that this big shallow body of water was infested with sharks. Salmon, bonito, yellowtail, taylor, mullet, which are the very best bait for any and all salt-water fish, inhabit this bay; and I am sure have a great deal to do with the presence of sharks.
After seeing a small specimen of wobbegong, or carpet shark, I was very keen to catch one. This fellow is about the most curious sea creature to be found. He resembles a long strip of Brussels carpet. He lies fairly flat on the bottom, almost like a flounder or halibut. He looks like seaweed and is a remarkable example of nature’s protective coloration. But in his case it must be more a matter of hiding from the small fish he preys upon than to be difficult to see for his larger enemies. From the wobbegong’s upper lip protrude a number of little colored bits of skin which could easily be taken for seaweed or something else good to eat. Anyway, this cunning shark lies low, watching, and when small fish come close to nibble at these deceitful lures the wobbegong snaps them up. This species of shark grows fairly large, and I’d give something unheard of to catch a big one. The most remarkable feature of the wobbegong is his teeth. They are like a nest of curved thorns. When the wobbegong gets his teeth in anything they cannot come free. They just bite out the piece they have hold of.
