by Zane Grey
My supreme effort brought the fish within the hundredth foot length of line—then my hands and my back refused any more.
“Dan, here’s the great chance you’ve always hankered for!” I said. “Now let’s see you pull him right in!”
And I passed him the rod and got up. Dan took it with the pleased expression of a child suddenly and wonderfully come into possession of a long-unattainable toy. Captain Dan was going to pull that fish right up to the boat. He was! Now Dan is big—he weighs two hundred; he has arms and hands like the limbs of a Vulcan. Perhaps Dan had every reason to believe he would pull the fish right up to the boat. But somehow I knew that he would not.
My fish, perhaps feeling a new and different and mightier hand at the rod, showed how he liked it by a magnificent rush—the greatest of the whole fight—and he took about five hundred feet of line.
Dan’s expression changed as if by magic.
“Steer the boat! Port! Port!” he yelled.
Probably I could not run a boat right with perfectly fresh and well hands, and with my lacerated and stinging ones I surely made a mess of it. This brought language from my boatman—well, to say the least, quite disrespectable. Fortunately, however, I got the boat around and we ran down on the fish. Dan, working with long, powerful sweeps of the rod, got the line back and the fish close. The game began to look great to me. All along I had guessed this fish to be a wonder; and now I knew it.
Hauling him close that way angered him. He made another rush, long and savage. The line smoked off that reel. Dan’s expression was one of utmost gratification to me. A boatman at last cornered—tied up to a whale of a fish!
Somewhere out there a couple of hundred yards the big fish came up and roared on the surface. I saw only circling wake and waves like those behind a speedy motor-boat. But Dan let out a strange shout, and up above the girls screamed, and brother Rome yelled murder or something. I gathered that he had a camera.
“Steady up there!” I called out. “If you fall overboard it’s good night!… For we want this fish!”
I had all I could do. Dan would order me to steer this way and that—to throw out the clutch—to throw it in. Still I was able to keep track of events. This fish made nineteen rushes in the succeeding half-hour. Never for an instant did Captain Dan let up. Assuredly during that time he spent more force on the fish than I had in six hours.
The sea was bad, the boat was rolling, the cockpit was inches deep under water many a time. I was hard put to it to stay at my post; and what saved the watchers above could not be explained by me.
“Mebbe I can hold him now—a little,” called Dan once, as he got the hundred-foot mark over the reel. “Strap the harness on me!”
I fastened the straps round Dan’s broad shoulders. His shirt was as wet as if he had fallen overboard. Maybe some of that wet was spray. His face was purple, his big arms bulging, and he whistled as he breathed.
“Good-by, Dan. This will be a fitting end for a boatman,” I said, cheerfully, as I dove back to the wheel.
At six o’clock our fish was going strong and Dan was tiring fast. He had, of course, worked too desperately hard.
Meanwhile the sun sank and the sea went down. All the west was gold and red, with the towers of Church Rock spiring the horizon. A flock of gulls were circling low, perhaps over a school of tuna. The white cottages of Avalon looked mere specks on the dark island.
Captain Dan had the swordfish within a hundred feet of the boat and was able to hold him. This seemed hopeful. It looked now just a matter of a little more time. But Dan needed a rest.
I suggested that my brother come down and take a hand in the final round, which I frankly confessed was liable to be hell.
“Not on your life!” was the prompt reply. “I want to begin on a little swordfish!… Why, that—that fish hasn’t waked up yet!”
And I was bound to confess there seemed to me to be a good deal of sense in what he said.
“Dan, I’ll take the rod—rest you a bit—so you can finish him,” I offered.
The half-hour Dan recorded as my further work on this fish will always be a dark and poignant blank in my fishing experience. When it was over twilight had come and the fish was rolling and circling perhaps fifty yards from the boat.
Here Dan took the rod again, and with the harness on and fresh gloves went at the fish in grim determination.
Suddenly the moon sailed out from behind a fog-bank and the sea was transformed. It was as beautiful as it was lucky for us.
By Herculean effort Dan brought the swordfish close. If any angler doubts the strength of a twenty-four thread line his experience is still young. That line was a rope, yet it sang like a banjo string.
Leaning over the side, with two pairs of gloves on, I caught the double line, and as I pulled and Dan reeled the fish came up nearer. But I could not see him. Then I reached the leader and held on as for dear life.
“I’ve got the leader!” I yelled. “Hurry, Dan!”
Dan dropped the rod and reached for his gaff. But he had neglected to unhook the rod from the harness, and as the fish lunged and tore the leader away from me there came near to being disaster. However, Dan got straightened out and anchored in the chair and began to haul away again. It appeared we had the fish almost done, but he was so big that a mere movement of his tail irresistibly drew out the line.
Then the tip of the rod broke off short just even with the splints and it slid down the line out of sight. Dan lowered the rod so most of the strain would come on the reel, and now he held like grim death.
“Dan, if we don’t make any more mistakes we’ll get that fish!” I declared.
The sea was almost calm now, and moon-blanched so that we could plainly see the line. Despite Dan’s efforts, the swordfish slowly ran off a hundred feet more of line. Dan groaned. But I yelled with sheer exultation. For, standing up on the gunwale, I saw the swordfish. He had come up. He was phosphorescent—a long gleam of silver—and he rolled in the unmistakable manner of a fish nearly beaten.
Suddenly he headed for the boat. It was a strange motion. I was surprised—then frightened. Dan reeled in rapidly. The streak of white gleamed closer and closer. It was like white fire—a long, savage, pointed shape.
“Look! Look!” I yelled to those above. “Don’t miss it!… Oh, great!”
“He’s charging the boat!” hoarsely shouted Dan.
“He’s all in!” yelled my brother.
I jumped into the cockpit and leaned over the gunwale beside the rod. Then I grasped the line, letting it slip through my hands. Dan wound in with fierce energy. I felt the end of the double line go by me, and at this I let out another shout to warn Dan. Then I had the end of the leader—a good strong grip—and, looking down, I saw the clear silver outline of the hugest fish I had ever seen short of shark or whale. He made a beautiful, wild, frightful sight. He rolled on his back. Roundbill or broadbill, he had an enormous length of sword.
“Come, Dan—we’ve got him!” I panted.
Dan could not, dare not get up then.
The situation was perilous. I saw how Dan clutched the reel, with his big thumbs biting into the line. I did my best. My sight failed me for an instant. But the fish pulled the leader through my hands. My brother leaped down to help—alas, too late!
“Let go, Dan! Give him line!”
But Dan was past that. Afterward he said his grip was locked. He held, and not another foot did the swordfish get. Again I leaned over the gunwale. I saw him—a monster—pale, wavering. His tail had an enormous spread. I could no longer see his sword. Almost he was ready to give up.
Then the double line snapped. I fell back in the boat and Dan fell back in the chair.
Nine hours!
CHAPTER V
SAILFISH—THE ATLANTIC BROTHER TO THE PACIFIC
SWORDFISH
In the winter of 1916 I persuaded Captain Sam Johnson, otherwise famous as Horse-mackerel Sam, of Seabright, New Jersey, to go to Long Key with me and see if t
he two of us as a team could not outwit those illusive and strange sailfish of the Gulf Stream.
Sam and I have had many adventures going down to sea. At Seabright we used to launch a Seabright skiff in the gray gloom of early morning and shoot the surf, and return shoreward in the afternoon to ride a great swell clear till it broke on the sand. When I think of Sam I think of tuna—those torpedoes of the ocean. I have caught many tuna with Sam, and hooked big ones, but these giants are still roving the blue deeps. Once I hooked a tuna off Sandy Hook, out in the channel, and as I was playing him the Lusitania bore down the channel. Like a mountain she loomed over us. I felt like an atom looking up and up. Passengers waved down to us as the tuna bent my rod. The great ship passed on in a seething roar—passed on to her tragic fate. We rode the heavy swells she lifted—and my tuna got away.
Sam Johnson is from Norway. His ancestors lived by fishing. Sam knows and loves the sea. He has been a sailor before the mast, but he is more fisherman than sailor. He is a stalwart man, with an iron, stern, weather-beaten face and keen blue eyes, and he has an arm like the branch of an oak. For many years he has been a market fisherman at Seabright, where on off days he pursued the horse-mackerel for the fun of it, and which earned him his name. Better than any man I ever met Sam knows the sea; he knows fish, he knows boats and engines. And I have reached a time in my experience of fishing where I want that kind of a boatman.
* * * *
Sam and I went after sailfish at Long Key and we got them. But I do not consider the experience conclusive. If it had not been for my hard-earned knowledge of the Pacific swordfish, and for Sam’s keenness on the sea, we would not have been so fortunate. We established the record, but, what is more important, we showed what magnificent sport is possible. This advent added much to the attractiveness of Long Key for me. And Long Key was attractive enough before.
Sailfish had been caught occasionally at Long Key, during every season. But I am inclined to believe that, in most instances, the capture of sailfish had been accident—mere fisherman’s luck. Anglers have fished along the reef and inside, trolling with heavy tackle for anything that might strike, and once in a while a sailfish has somehow hooked himself. Mr. Schutt tells of hooking one on a Wilson spoon, and I know of another angler who had this happen. I know of one gentleman who told me he hooked a fish that he supposed was a barracuda, and while he was fighting this supposed barracuda he was interested in the leaping of a sailfish near his boat. His boatman importuned him to hurry in the barracuda so there would be a chance to go after the leaping sailfish. But it turned out that the sailfish was on his hook. Another angler went out with heavy rod, the great B-Ocean reel, and two big hooks (which is an outfit suitable only for large tuna or swordfish), and this fellow hooked a sailfish which had no chance and was dead in less than ten minutes. A party of anglers were out on the reef, fishing for anything, and they decided to take a turn outside where I had been spending days after sailfish. Scarcely had these men left the reef when five sailfish loomed up and all of them, with that perversity and capriciousness which makes fish so incomprehensible, tried to climb on board the boat. One, a heavy fish, did succeed in hooking himself and getting aboard. I could multiply events of this nature, but this is enough to illustrate my point—that there is a vast difference between several fishermen out of thousands bringing in several sailfish in one season and one fisherman deliberately going after sailfish with light tackle and eventually getting them.
It is not easy. On the contrary, it is extremely hard. It takes infinite patience, and very much has to be learned that can be learned only by experience. But it is magnificent sport and worth any effort. It makes tarpon-fishing tame by comparison. Tarpon-fishing is easy. Anybody can catch a tarpon by going after him. But not every fisherman can catch a sailfish. One fisherman out of a hundred will get his sailfish, but only one out of a thousand will experience the wonder and thrill and beauty of the sport.
Sailfishing is really swordfishing, and herein lies the secret of my success at Long Key. I am not satisfied that the sailfish I caught were all Marlin and brothers to the Pacific Marlin. The Atlantic fish are very much smaller than those of the Pacific, and are differently marked and built. Yet they are near enough alike to be brothers.
There are three species that I know of in southern waters. The Histiophorus, the sailfish about which I am writing and of which descriptions follow. There is another species, Tetrapturus albidus, that is not uncommon in the Gulf Stream. It is my impression that this species is larger. The Indians, with whom I fished in the Caribbean, tell of a great swordfish—in Spanish the Aguja de casta, and this species must be related to Xiphias, the magnificent flatbilled swordfish of the Atlantic and Pacific.
* * * *
The morning of my greatest day with sailfish I was out in the Gulf Stream, seven miles offshore, before the other fishermen had gotten out of bed. We saw the sun rise ruddy and bright out of the eastern sea, and we saw sailfish leap as if to welcome the rising of the lord of day. A dark, glancing ripple wavered over the water; there was just enough swell to make seeing fish easy.
I was using a rod that weighed nine ounces over all, and twelve hundred feet of fifteen-thread line. I was not satisfied then that the regular light outfit of the Tuna Club, such as I used at Avalon, would do for sailfish. No. 9 breaks of its own weight. And I have had a sailfish run off three hundred yards of line and jump all the time he was doing it. Besides, nobody knows how large these sailfish grow. I had hold of one that would certainly have broken my line if he had not thrown the hook.
On this memorable day I had scarcely trolled half a mile out into the Stream before I felt that inexplicable rap at my bait which swordfish and sailfish make with their bills. I jumped up and got ready. I saw a long bronze shape back of my bait. Then I saw and felt him take hold. He certainly did not encounter the slightest resistance in running out my line. He swam off slowly. I never had Sam throw out the clutch and stop the boat until after I had hooked the fish. I wanted the boat to keep moving, so if I did get a chance to strike at a fish it would be with a tight line. These sailfish are wary and this procedure is difficult. If the fish had run off swiftly I would have struck sooner. Everything depends on how he takes the bait. This fellow took fifty feet of line before I hooked him.
He came up at once, and with two-thirds of his body out of the water he began to skitter toward us. He looked silver and bronze in the morning light. There was excitement on board. Sam threw out the clutch. My companions dove for the cameras, and we all yelled. The sailfish came skittering toward us. It was a spectacular and thrilling sight. He was not powerful enough to rise clear on his tail and do the famous trick of the Pacific swordfish—“walking on the water.” But he gave a mighty good imitation. Then before the cameras got in a snap he went down. And he ran, to come up far astern and begin to leap. I threw off the drag and yelled, “Go!”
This was pleasant for Sam, who kept repeating, “Look at him yump!”
The sailfish evidently wanted to pose for pictures, for he gave a wonderful exhibition of high and lofty tumbling, with the result, of course, that he quickly exhausted himself. Then came a short period during which he sounded and I slowly worked him closer. Presently he swam toward the boat—the old swordfish trick. I never liked it, but with the sailfish I at least was not nervous about him attacking the boat. Let me add here that this freedom from dread—which is never absent during the fighting of a big swordfish—is one of the features so attractive in sailfishing. Besides, fish that have been hooked for any length of time, if they are going to shake or break loose, always do so near the boat. We moved away from this fellow, and presently he came up again, and leaped three more times clear, making nineteen leaps in all. That about finished his performance, so regretfully I led him alongside; and Sam, who had profited by our other days of landing sailfish, took him cautiously by the sword, and then by the gills, and slid him into the boat.
Sailfish are never alike, except in general outline. This
one was silver and bronze, with green bars, rather faint, and a dark-blue sail without any spots. He measured seven feet one inch. But we measured his quality by his leaps and nineteen gave him the record for us so far.
We stowed him up in the bow and got under way again, and scarcely had I let my bait far enough astern when a sailfish hit it. In fact, he rushed it. Quick as I was, which was as quick as a flash, I was not quick enough for that fish. He felt the hook and he went away. But he had been there long enough to get my bait.
Just then Sam pointed. I saw a sailfish break water a hundred yards away.
“Look at him yump!” repeated Sam, every time the fish came out, which, to be exact, was five times.
“We’ll go over and pick him up,” I said.
Sam and I always argue a little about the exact spot where a fish has broken water. I never missed it far, but Sam seldom missed it at all. He could tell by a slight foam always left by the break. We had two baits out, as one or another of my companions always holds a rod. The more baits out the better! We had two vicious, smashing strikes at the same time. The fish on the other rod let go just as I hooked mine.
He came up beautifully, throwing the spray, glinting in the sun, an angry fish with sail spread and his fins going. Then on the boat was the same old thrilling bustle and excitement and hilarity I knew so well and which always pleased me so much. This sailfish was a jumper.
“Look at him yump!” exclaimed Sam, with as much glee as if he had not seen it before.
The cameras got busy. Then I was attracted by something flashing in the water nearer the boat than my fish. Suddenly a sailfish leaped, straightaway, over my line. Then two leaped at once, both directly over my line.
“Sam, they’ll cut my line!” I cried. “What do you think of that?”
Suddenly I saw sharp, dark, curved tails cutting the water. All was excitement on board that boat then.
“A school of sailfish! Look! Look!” I yelled.
I counted ten tails, but there were more than that, and if I had been quicker I could have counted more. Presently they went down. And I, returning to earth and the business of fishing, discovered that during the excitement my sailfish had taken advantage of a perfectly loose line to free himself. Nine leaps we recorded him!