Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  Australians are blessed with their boundless bush. No doubt the bigness and warmth which are characteristic of the native Australian have come in some degree from the splendid trees under which he has lived.

  It may seem rather a far cry from the beauty and ministry of trees to the ghastly menace of a man-eating shark, and a grueling fight with one, but that is where we must go.

  South of Bateman Bay, and ten miles off Cape Burly, we ran into a trio of trawlers working a wide area of waters that must have netted them tons of fish. Many as have been the trawlers I have seen, I never before fished among them. This was a curious and unique experience, valuable to any fisherman.

  These trawlers criss-crossed this twenty-mile square of ocean, and about every two hours they halted to haul up their nets. These had wooden doors, and an opening thirty or forty feet wide, which traveled along the bottom, scooping up all kinds of fish. We saw only the rubbish they threw overboard, consisting of small rays, fiddlers, sharks, porcupine fish, and a red-colored big-eyed fish that appeared to have burst upon the surface. We also saw barracuda, leatherjacks, and other fish.

  They floated in confusion along the surface, in the track of the trawler, most of them alive, swimming upside down. Gulls, shearwater ducks (mutton birds), and the great wide-winged albatross reaped a harvest that the sharks had not time to get. The sharks, however, were busy enough. I saw dozens of whalers, a few hammerheads, several large pale sharks that kept deep down, and a number of Marlin in the wake of these ships.

  It was exceedingly interesting to watch them, aside from the possibility of raising a swordfish. The screaming of the sea fowl, the colored fish lying scattered all over the wakes, the big dark fins and tails of sharks milling about, an occasional swirl and splash on the water, and lastly the passing to and fro of the trawlers afforded a moving and thrilling spectacle for an angler.

  I took that all in as I trolled to and fro, following the ships. Swordfish fins were occasionally sighted, and we raised a number. They had fed, however, and would not take a bait, and their interest appeared to be solely in the teasers.

  Two days of this working with the trawlers did not earn us a single Marlin. We caught several, though only after we had run far out of the zone of the trawlers. I tried a third day, however, finding it hard to resist those big sickle tails that we caught sight of rarely. I was, of course, on the lookout for a big black Marlin.

  Still I kept a weather eye open for a big shark, and was not particular what breed he was. Among the trawlers it was not unusual to see a dozen whaler sharks all in a bunch, sticking their ugly dark noses out, gulping down fish into their wide mouths.

  That third day, coming upon two big ones close together, I said to Emil, “Let’s have a go at these.” And we were soon fast to a heavy fish. A whaler will usually take a long fast run. Mine did this, while Emil’s, evidently a huge fish, merely went down. Our boatman, Peter, was at a loss what to do. In the melee, however, Emil’s shark got off, and I was left to battle a stubborn, heavy brute.

  We caught up with him, and then he was off again. After this second run, however, he sounded deep and invited me to see what I could do about it. After an hour or so of getting him up and having him go down again I began to suspect that I had hold of a big fellow. Therefore I called upon patience and reserve strength to make a sure thing of catching him.

  The fight was interesting because it was exactly what Mr. Bullen, the Sydney shark expert, said was the way the great tiger worked. I was acquiring practice and experience, at considerable loss of sweat, labor, and enthusiasm. This son-of-a-gun stayed in one place, it appeared. I had to pump and wind, pump and wind, monotonously and continuously. I would get him up to the double line and then down he would go again. I had that work to do over and over. His evident size, however, kept me nailed to my post; and after over two hours of hard work I had him coming.

  My first sight of this whaler was a flash of gold, and as he came closer up he changed color from that to dark green, and finally black. He was a sullen-eyed surly brute that made striking the gaff into him a keen, savage sort of pleasure. When Peter sent the steel home I yelled, “Mr. Whaler, you’ll never kill another human being!”

  That idea had seemed to obsess me all along, and it grew stronger. This whaler was big and heavy and mean. On the gaff he raised hell, wet us thoroughly, and made everybody mad. He was too big to haul up on the stern, so we had to tow him fifteen miles to camp — a long, slow trip.

  I gambled with the boys on his weight, which I wagered was nine hundred pounds, but, as usual, I lost, for he weighed only eight hundred and ninety. He was twelve feet long; and those two facts constitute a mighty big fish.

  A Mr. Wallace and companion fisherman, staying at Bateman Bay, came in one day with a six-hundred-and-ninety-pound shark, which they had fought for forty minutes, and then shot. They could not identify it, and asked me to do so, which I was glad to be able to do. Sharks can always be identified by their teeth, provided you know shark teeth.

  Fortunately, in this case it was easy, as the large triangular upper teeth, serrated, and the smaller less-triangular lower teeth, belonged to that rare species of the Seven Seas — the white pointer or less commonly known as the white death.

  This fellow grows to forty feet and more in length, and teeth have been found in the ooze from the bottom of the sea so large that they must have belonged to sharks eighty feet long — a fearful and marvelous monster to conjure up in imagination.

  I had seen at least two of these rare and great sharks, one at Rangaroa, in the Paumotos, and the other off Montague Island. Naturally I was hoping to catch one.

  So far as I can ascertain, only three of this species has been caught in Australia, one eighteen feet long, shot and harpooned at Bermagui; another larger, which was vouched for by Dr. Stead, the scientist. My boatman, Peter Williams, harpooned one at the whaling-station near Russell, New Zealand. It was twenty-three feet long and would have weighed far over a ton. I saw the jaws of this one, and they were indeed formidable. A good-sized man could sit down inside of them.

  My hopes of striking a white-death shark on the South Coast had almost waned when, three days before we shifted camp at Bateman Bay I sighted what I thought was one at Black Rock. He had the same shape and the same dorsal fin with which I had familiarized myself. Only he appeared darker in color.

  Peter was not keen about closer acquaintance, but that certainly did not hold for me. I cautioned him to keep wide as we dragged a freshly cut salmon across in front of the shark. If the fish saw it he gave no sign. Again we ran in front of the brute and closer this time. In fact we went pretty close. I saw his peculiarly blunt nose, coming to a point, and the protruding upper lip which allowed the big white arrowhead-shaped teeth to show. That was a sight to chill the blood. He was lazily riding the waves, his bold, staring black eyes on the boat. Surely he saw us. But he ignored the bait.

  “Throw something at the blighter,” yelled Peter. “Nope. Go closer next time,” I replied.

  On this third attempt, before we got even with the shark, he made a swift and savage run. There was a splash, a crack, and he sheered away swift as a Marlin. The instant I recovered from this surprising procedure I jammed on the drag and struck. If that shark did anything, he struck back at me. Then, when I had him hooked he performed the old amazing, thrilling trick of the mako — he came for us. I had to wind fast to reel in the line.

  There he was! Only the length of my leader! And that was thirty feet.

  “What’ll we do now?” I shouted, aghast.

  “Hang on to the double line,” replied Peter, and dived into the cabin for the gaff.

  The swivel of the leader was against my rod tip. I had no trouble in holding the shark. He turned at right angles with us and was swimming along with the boat, a few feet under. Presently he came up so that his pale dorsal fin stood up out of the water. He was not white by any means, but he was light colored, and stream-lined in shape, and sinister of aspect. He looked
large, too, fully as large as my biggest whaler.

  “Pete, what are you going to do?” I called, as he came out with gaff and rope.

  “Let’s have a go at him.”

  “It’s too soon. If you failed to get the gaff in good he’d drown us and get away.”

  On the other hand, if we hurt him and he ran off, it was almost a certainty that he would take long to drag in again. I debated the question. If it had not been a white shark I would not have hesitated. But during that moment of vacillation the shark made up his mind and he ran off two hundred yards as fast as any Marlin ever went. Then he stopped, but did not sound. He just fought the leader; and as I put all my weight and strength into the task we had it nip and tuck. I could always fight a fish far away from me better than one near at hand. For my pains, however, I got very little line in.

  “Shall I run up on him?” asked Peter.

  “No. I’ll pull him back or break him off,” I replied as, baffled and resentful, I worked with renewed vigor. I did not keep track of the time, but it was far from being short. I had enough of this white shark to guess at what a twenty-footer would be like. And in due course, when I pulled the leader up within reach, I was wet and panting, and mad at my ineffectual attempt.

  He went under the boat, so we had to keep moving. Peter hauled on the leader in a way to alarm me. And he was swearing, always with Peter a sign of impatience and effort. Emil stood with the big gaff, ready to hand it to the boatman, while I loosened my harness hooks, and the drag on the reel.

  “Drop the leader overboard,” I cautioned, as always.

  I saw the shark come out from under the boat. He had rolled over on the leader. The bright steel flashed. Crash! Then all was lost in a maelstrom of flying white spray and green water.

  “Let him run on the rope,” I shouted.

  “I can hold him...Emil, get a tail rope,” replied Peter.

  It required some time to put a noose over that threshing tail, during which I stood there, ready to carry on my part should the shark break away. Once roped, however, he gave up with little more ado.

  We tried to haul him up on the stern, but he was too heavy. We, therefore, towed him the three miles in to camp. Night had fallen when we arrived, so that we could neither weigh nor photograph him. The boys pulled him up on the bank, however, and left him there. After supper I went to look at him, finding him dead and growing dark in color. He appeared to be a soft-fleshed shark that would shrink much overnight.

  Next morning we stayed in camp a few hours to photograph this specimen. He was not so large, though nearly so, as my big whaler. And allowing for the percentage of shrinkage he weighed eight hundred and forty pounds. And he was nine feet six inches long. He had turned a grayish black in color. His pectorals were large. His round lower end, and the flange where it joined the tail, resembled that of both a mako and a broadbill swordfish, but more like the latter fish. Close study of this shark identified it as immature. He really was a youngster of that species. But for me he was a notable catch, a different and splendid shark, and I was proud of having gotten him and adding that terrible white-fanged jaw to my collection. I made a reluctant and secret observation, too, and it was that I was going to be scared of a giant shark of his class.

  CHAPTER VIII

  FASCINATING PLACES TO fish have been a specialty of mine; and I have record of many where no other fisherman ever wet a line. This always seemed to be a fetish of mine. New and lonely waters! My preference has been the rocky points of islands where two currents meet.

  Fishing off Sydney Heads, Australia, is as far removed from this as could well be imagined.

  Great scarred yellow cliffs, like the colored walls of an Arizona canyon, guard the entrance to Sydney Harbor, which, if not really the largest harbor in the world, is certainly the most wonderful. These bold walls, standing high and sheer, perhaps a mile apart, look down upon the most colorful and variable shipping of the Seven Seas. I passed through this portal on the S.S. Mariposa, gazing up at the lofty walls, at the towering lighthouses and the slender wireless stands black against the sky, never dreaming that the day would come when I saw them above me while fighting one of the greatest giant fish I ever caught.

  At the end of three months fishing on the South Coast of Australia, during which my party and I caught sixty-seven big fish, mostly swordfish, weighing twenty-one thousand pounds, we found ourselves at Watson’s Bay, just around the corner of the South Head, within sight of all Sydney, and in fact located in the city suburbs, for the purpose of pursuing further our extraordinary good luck. I hoped, of course, to catch the first swordfish off Sydney Heads, and incidentally beat the shark record.

  I was introduced to this Sydney fishing by Mr. Bullen, who held the record, and who had pioneered the rod-and-reel sport practically alone, and had been put upon his own resources and invention to master the hazardous and hard game of fishing for the man-eating tiger shark.

  In angling, my admiration and respect go to the man who spends much time and money and endurance in the pursuit of one particular fish. Experiment and persistence are necessary to the making of a great angler. If Mr. Bullen has not arrived, he surely is far on the way. For three years he fished for tiger sharks from boats which in some cases were smaller than the fish he fought. His mistakes in method and his development of tackle were but steps up the stairway to success. I want to record here, in view of the small craft he fished out of and the huge size and malignant nature of tiger sharks, that, after a desperate battle to bring one of these man-eaters up to the surface, he was justified in shooting it.

  This shooting of sharks, by the way, was the method practiced in Australia, as harpooning them was and still is prevalent in New Zealand. In America we have sixty years’ development back of big-game fishing; and all the sporting clubs disqualify a harpooned or shot fish. The justification of this rule is that opportunity presents very many times to kill a big fish or shark before it has actually waked up. This is not fair to the angler who fights one for a long time.

  In Australia, however, the situation is vastly different. There are thousands of terrible sharks. In the book I am writing, Tales of Man-eating Sharks, I have data for three hundred tragedies and disasters. I expect this book will be a revelation to those distinguished scientists of the United States who do not believe a shark will attack a human being. Certainly it would be better to fish for sharks and shoot them on sight than not fish at all. For, every shark killed may save one or more lives. While I have been in Australia there have been several tragedies, particularly horrible. A boy bathing at Manly Beach was taken and carried away for moments in plain sight. Somewhere in South Australia another boy was swimming near a dock. Suddenly a huge blue pointer shark seized him and leaped clear of the water with him, before making off. Such incidents should make a shark-killer out of any angler.

  Before I reached Sydney I had caught a number of man-eaters, notably some whalers, an unknown white shark, and some of those sleek, treacherous devils, the gray nurse, believed by many to be Australia’s most deadly shark. I had had enough experience to awaken in me all the primitive savagery to kill which lay hidden in me, and I fear it was a very great deal. The justification, however, inhibits any possible thought of mercy. Nevertheless, despite all the above, I think gaffing sharks is the most thrilling method, and the one that gives the man-eater, terrible as he is, a chance for his life. If you shoot a shark or throw a Norway whale harpoon through him, the battle is ended. On the other hand, if by toil and endurance, by pain and skill, you drag a great shark up to the boat, so that your boatman can reach the wire leader and pull him close to try and gaff him, the battle by no means is ended. You may have to repeat this performance time and again; and sometimes your fish gets away, after all. Because of that climax I contend that all anglers should graduate to the use of the gaff. Perhaps really the very keenest, fiercest thrill is to let your boatman haul in on the leader and you gaff the monster. Thoreau wrote that the most satisfying thing was to strangle
and kill a wild beast with your naked hands!

  It was only a short run by boat round the South Head to the line of cliff along which we trolled for bait. The water was deep and blue. Slow swells heaved against the rocks and burst into white spray and flowed back into the sea like waterfalls. A remarkable feature was the huge flat ledges or aprons that jutted out at the base of the walls, over which the swells poured in roaring torrent, to spend their force on the stone face and slide back in glistening maelstrom. Dr. Stead assures me this apron is an indication of very recent elevation of the coast. The Gap was pointed out to me where a ship struck years ago on a black stormy night, to go down with all of the hundreds on board, except one man who was lifted to a rock and, crawling up, clung there to be rescued. Suicide Leap was another interesting point where scores of people had gone to their doom, for reasons no one can ever fathom. The wooden ladders fastened precariously on the cliff, down to the ledges where fishing was good, these that had been the death of so many fishermen, held a singular gloomy fascination for me.

  Trolling for bait was so good that I did not have so much time for sight-seeing. Bonito and kingfish bit voraciously and we soon had plenty of bait. We ran out to sea dragging teasers and bonito in the wake of the Avalon, and I settled down to that peculiar happiness of watching the sea for signs of fish. Hours just fade away unnoticeably at such pastime. In the afternoon we ran in to the reefs and drifted for sharks.

  I derived a great deal of pleasure from watching the ships that passed through the harbor gate and those which came out to spread in all directions, according to their destinations, all over the world, and soon grow hull down on the horizon and vanish. Airplanes zoomed overhead. Small craft dotted the green waters outside and white sails skimmed the inner harbor. Through the wide gate I could see shores and slopes covered with red-roofed houses, and beyond them the skyscrapers of the city, and dominating all this scene the grand Sydney bridge, with its fretwork span high above the horizon.