American Angler in Australia (1937)

by Grey, Zane

  I did not mention that I had one of my rare and singular feelings of something about to happen. My companions settled down resignedly to what seemed futile carrying-on.

  Fifteen minutes later something took hold of my line with a slow irresistible pull. My heart leaped. I could not accept what my eyes beheld. My line slowly payed off the reel. I put my gloved hand over the moving spool in the old habit of being ready to prevent an overrun. Still I did not believe it. But there--the line slipped off slowly, steadily, potently. Strike! There was no doubt of that. And I, who had experienced ten thousand strikes, shook all over with the possibilities of this one.

  Suddenly, sensing the actuality, I called out, "There he goes!"

  Peter dubiously looked at my reel--saw the line gliding off.

  "Right-o, sir!"

  Love's tanned image became radiant. Emil woke up and began to stutter.

  "It's a fine strike," yelled Love, leaping up. "Starts like a tiger!"

  He ran forward to heave up the anchor. Peter directed Emil to follow and help him. Then I heard the crack of the electric starter and the sound of the engine.

  "Let him have it!" advised Peter, hopefully. "It was a long wait, sir... Maybe..."

  "Swell strike, Pete," I replied. "Never had one just like it. He has taken two hundred yards already. It feels under my fingers just as if you had your hand on my coat sleeve and were drawing me slowly toward you."

  "Take care. He may put it in high. And that anchor line is long."

  When Love and Emil shouted from forward, and then came running aft, the fish, whatever it was, had out between four and five hundred yards of line. I shoved forward the drag on the big Kovalovsky reel and struck with all my might. Then I reeled in swift and hard. Not until the fifth repetition of this violent action did I come up on the weight of that fish. So sudden and tremendous was the response that I was lifted clear out of my chair. Emil, hands at my belt, dragged me back.

  "He's hooked. Some fish! Get my harness," I rang out.

  In another moment, with my shoulders sharing that pull on me, I felt exultant, deeply thrilled, and as strong as Samson. I quite forgot to look at my watch, which seemed an indication of my feelings. My quarry kept on taking line even before I released the drag.

  "Run up on him, Pete. Let's get close to him; I don't like being near these anchored boats."

  There were two fishing-boats around, the nearer a little too close for comfort. Peter hooked up the engine and I bent to the task of recovering four hundred yards of line. I found the big Kovalovsky perfect for this necessary job. I was hot and sweating, however, when again I came up hard on the heavy weight, now less than several hundred feet away and rather close to the surface. I watched the bend of my rod tip.

  "What kind of fish?" I asked.

  "It's sure no black Marlin," answered Peter, reluctantly.

  "I couldn't tell from the rod," added Love. "But it's a heavy fish. I hope a tiger."

  Emil sang out something hopeful. I said: "Well, boys, it's a shark of some kind," and went to work. With a medium drag I fought that shark for a while, watching the tip, and feeling the line, to get what we call "a line" on him. But it was true that I had never felt a fish just like this one. One instant he seemed as heavy as a rock, and the next light, moving, different. Again I lost the feel of him entirely, and knowing the habit of sharks to slip up on the line to bite it, I reeled like mad. So presently I was divided between the sense that he was little, after all, and the sense that he was huge. Naturally I gravitated to the conviction that I had hooked a new species of fish to me, and a tremendously heavy one. My plan of battle therefore was quickly decided by that. I shoved up the drag on the great Kovalovsky reel to five pounds, six, seven pounds.

  This much had heretofore been a drag I had never used. But this fish pulled each out just as easily as if there had been none. I could not hold him or get in any line without following him. So cautiously I pushed up the drag to nine pounds, an unprecedented power for me to use.

  It made no difference at all to the fish, wherefore I went back to five pounds. For a while I ran after him, wound in the line, then had the boat stopped and let him pull out the line again.

  "I forgot to take the time. Did any of you?"

  "About half an hour," replied Emil.

  "Just forty minutes," said Peter, consulting his clock in the cabin.

  "And you're working too fast--too hard. Ease up."

  I echoed that forty minutes and could hardly believe it. But time flies in the early stages of a fight with a big fish. I took Peter's advice and reduced my action. And at this stage of the game I reverted to the conduct and talk of my companions, and to the thrilling facts of the setting. Peter held the wheel and watched my line, grim and concerned.

  Love bounced around my chair, eager, talkative, excited. Emil sang songs and quoted poetry while he waited with his camera. Occasionally he snapped a picture of me.

  The sea was aflame with sunset gold. A grand golden flare flooded through the gate between the Heads. Black against this wonderful sky the Sydney Bridge curved aloft over the city, majestic, marvelous in its beauty. To its left the sinking sun blazed upon the skyscraper buildings. The black cliffs, gold rimmed, stood up boldly far above me. But more marvelous than any of these, in fact exceedingly rare and lovely to me, were the ships putting to sea out of that illuminated gateway. There were six of these in plain sight.

  "Getting out before Good Friday," said Peter. "That one on the right is the Monowai, and the other on the left is the Maunganui. They're going to come to either side of us, and pretty close."

  "Well!" I exclaimed. "What do you think of that? I've been on the Monowai and have had half a dozen trips in the Maunganui."

  These ships bore down on us, getting up speed. The officers on the bridge of the Maunganui watched us through their glasses, and both waved their caps. They must have recognized the Avalon, and therefore knew it was I who was fast to a great fish right outside the entrance of Sydney Harbor.

  The deck appeared crowded with curious passengers, who waved, and cheered. That ship steamed hissing and roaring by us, not a hundred yards away, and certainly closer to my fish than we were. The Monowai passed on the other side, almost even with her sister ship. Naturally, being human, I put on a show for these ships, by working hard and spectacularly on my fish.

  Close behind these loomed a ship twice as large. She appeared huge in comparison. From her black bulk gleamed myriads of lights, and vast clouds of smoke belched from her stacks. Peter named her, the Rangitati, or some name like that, and said she was bound for England via the Panama Canal. Then the other ships came on and passed us, and soon were silhouetted dark against the purple sky.

  All this while, which seemed very short and was perhaps half an hour, I worked on my fish, and I was assured that he knew it. Time had passed, for the lighthouse on the cliff suddenly sent out its revolving piercing rays. Night was not far away, yet I seemed to see everything almost as clearly as by day.

  For quite a space I had been able to get the double line over the reel, but I could not hold it. However, I always tried to. I had two pairs of gloves and thumb stalls on each hand; and with these I could safely put a tremendous strain on the line without undue risk, which would have been the case had I trusted the rod.

  By now the sport and thrill had been superseded by pangs of toil and a grim reality of battle. It had long ceased to be fun. I was getting whipped and I knew it. I had worked too swiftly. The fish was slowing and it was a question of who would give up first. Finally, without increasing the strain, I found I could stop and hold my fish on the double line.

  This was occasion for renewed zest. When I told my crew they yelled wildly. Peter had long since got out the big detachable gaff, with its long rope.

  I held on to that double line with burning, painful hands. And I pulled it in foot by foot, letting go to wind in the slack.

  "The leader--I see it!" whispered Love.

  "Whoopee!" ye
lled Emil.

  "A little more, sir," added Peter, tensely, leaning over the gunwale, his gloved hands outstretched.

  In another moment I had the big swivel of the leader in reach.

  "Hang on--Pete!" I panted, as I stood up to release the drag and unhook my harness. "Drop the leader--overboard... Emil, stand by... Love, gaff this fish when I--tell you!"

  "He's coming, sir," rasped out Peter, hauling in, his body taut.

  "There!... My Gawd!"

  Emil screeched at the top of his lungs. The water opened to show the back of an enormous shark. Pearl gray in color, with dark tiger stripes, a huge rounded head and wide flat back, this fish looked incredibly beautiful. I had expected a hideous beast.

  "Now!" I yelled.

  Love lunged with the gaff. I stepped back, suddenly deluged with flying water and blindly aware of a roar and a banging on the boat. I could not see anything for moments. The men were shouting hoarsely in unison. I distinguished Peter's voice. "Rope--tail!"

  "Let him run!" I shouted.

  Between the up-splashing sheets of water I saw the three men holding that shark. It was a spectacle. Peter stood up, but bent, with his brawny shoulders sagging. Love and Emil were trying to rope that flying tail.

  For I had no idea how long, but probably a brief time, this strenuous action prevailed before my eyes. It beat any battle I recalled with a fish at the gaff. The huge tiger rolled over, all white underneath, and he opened a mouth that would have taken a barrel. I saw the rows of white fangs and heard such a snap of jaws that had never before struck my ears.

  I shuddered at their significance. No wonder men shot and harpooned such vicious brutes!

  "It's over--his tail," cried Love, hoarsely, and straightened up with the rope. Emil lent a hand. And then the three men held that ferocious tiger shark until he ceased his struggles. They put another rope over his tail and made fast to the ring-bolt.

  When Peter turned to me his broad breast heaved--his breath whistled--the corded muscles stood out on his arms--he could not speak.

  "Pete!--Good work. I guess that's about, the hardest tussle we've ever had at the gaff."

  We towed our prize into the harbor and around to the dock at Watson's Bay, where a large crowd awaited us. They cheered us lustily. They dragged the vast bulk of my shark up on the sand. It required twenty-odd men to move him. He looked marble color in the twilight. But the tiger stripes showed up distinctly. He knocked men right and left with his lashing tail, and he snapped with those terrible jaws. The crowd, however, gave that business end of him a wide berth. I had one good long look at this tiger shark while the men were erecting the tripod; and I accorded him more appalling beauty and horrible significance than all the great fish I had ever caught.

  "Well, Mr. Man-eater, you will never kill any boy or girl!" I flung at him.

  That was the deep and powerful emotion I felt--the justification of my act--the worthiness of it, and the pride in what it took. There, I am sure, will be the explanation of my passion and primal exultance.

  Dr. Stead, scientist and official of the Sydney Museum, and Mr. Bullen of the Rod Fishers' Society, weighed and measured my record tiger shark.

  Length, thirteen feet ten inches. Weight, one thousand and thirty-six pounds!

  Chapter IX

  As luck would have it, my manager, Ed Bowen, had the honor of catching the first striped Marlin swordfish ever brought in to Sydney. The feat pleased me almost as much as if I had done it myself.

  We had seen several swordfish tails cutting the swells off Sydney Heads, from three to ten miles out, and we were satisfied that we could catch some Marlin if only we had some good weather. But out of three weeks at Watson's Bay we had only a few days when we could fish. And it so happened that the day I caught a five-hundred-and-forty-pound whaler shark and an eight-hundred-and-five-pound tiger was the one on which Bowen snagged the coveted prize of the first Marlin for Sydney.

  He deserved credit for it, too. The sea was rough out wide, as the Australians call offshore, and he followed my pet method of running the wheels off the boat. Fishing out of Bullen's boat, with the genial Erroll as companion, Bowen ran along the cliffs, catching bait as far down as Bondi, then struck out to sea. Twelve miles or so out they hit into that warm blue south-bound current I have mentioned so often, and trolled to and fro, up and down, from ten until three without a rise.

  About three, however, Bowen saw a blue streak shooting in toward bait and teasers. He yelled lustily. Bullen then saw the fish and swiftly reeled in his bait. It was an even break for the anglers, both baits abreast, with fame for the lucky one. Bullen's action would be incredible under ordinary circumstances, but considering that he had started the big-game fishing at Sydney, and had been three years trying and learning under many handicaps, this sporting deed, this generous sacrifice, was one of singular and extraordinary self-effacement and sportsmanship. I have done this trick a few times in my life, mostly for my brother R. C., but I doubt that I could have done it in this peculiar case.

  The Marlin was ravenous, and gobbling Bowen's bait he was off to the races. Bowen said he had never been so keen, so tense to hook a fish, and that he had the thrill of his life when he came up on the weight of the Marlin. This Marlin was one of the wild ones and ran and jumped all over the ocean. In due course Ed whipped this fish and Bullen gaffed it. With the beautiful purple-striped specimen on board they headed for Sydney Harbor, and ran in to Watson's Bay just before sunset. The fish was weighed in before a record crowd, and registered one hundred and seventy-two pounds. The size, however, had nothing to do with the importance of the event. Telephones began to buzz and in an hour all the reporters in Sydney were on the job. The feat was heralded as it deserved. Before eight o'clock every vestige of that Marlin, except the backbone, was gone, for souvenirs and morsels of meat to cook.

  Even before the capture of this game species of sporting fish, I had already envisioned Watson's Bay, Sydney, as one of the great fishing resorts of the world. I can see a fine hotel and cottages go up in that delightful bay, and many high-powered fast launches with capable boatmen to take care of the anglers from overseas.

  Australians, with few exceptions, will go slowly for this new sport. They have not been born to it. Nothing has been known of the swordfish, and the great sharks were considered as vermin, hardly worth the use of a hand line. But the overseas anglers will change all this. Their experience, their reputation, their fishing-gear, and their incredible passion for the game will intrigue the hundreds of rich sportsmen in Australia, and excite in them a spirit of rivalry. "Here," they will say, "what's all this about? All this expense and persistence. What are we missing?"

  The big sharks will interest the overseas fishermen. Every last one of them will want to capture a huge tiger shark. Personally, I don't see anything lacking in this tiger to make him a prize. He is a strong, heavy, mean fighter. He is full of surprises. He is huge and frightful, beautiful and savage in the water, and terrible out of it. If, in any particular case, there is something lacking in this tiger shark, it is more than made up for by the nature of the beast, by the fact that he is a killer and will eat you. In my mind that is a feature formidable and magnificent.

  For myself the catching of some tiger sharks was an outstanding achievement, and that of my record tiger something never to be forgotten.

  The sensations this fish roused in me during the strike and battle, and especially my first sight of him, and then when he was hauled up on the sand, stand out in my memory as marvelous and indescribable.

  I have written elsewhere about the wonderful setting Sydney Heads and the harbor and Sydney provide for the appreciative angler. Big sharks, big black Marlin, and his smaller cousin, the striped Marlin, will make a growing appeal to all anglers in the world who love the big rod-and-reel game, and who will take the time and spend the money to obtain it. The fact is it is not a game that can be had cheaply, although Sydney, like Avalon, California, will afford angling within the means of mos
t sportsmen. The thing is to have them realize its greatness. Time alone can prove that. Here's to the Sydney of the future generations of anglers!

  Only one thing I fear that might interfere in some degree with my prediction. And that is the weather. All I saw off Sydney Heads, except for a few days, was wind. It can blow there. This, however, would only bother the overseas anglers. Australians like Bullen will fish when the weather is good. It is always irksome for anglers to come a long way and fall upon evil days, gales and rough seas. Only the persistent and passionate angler can prevail in spite of these. I do not see, however, that any really great fishing anywhere can be had without hard work, incredible patience and endurance.

  During an early hour of Bowen's red-letter day with the first Marlin for Sydney Heads, I hooked a mean shark that felt like the bottom of the ocean.

  It did not convince me it was a tiger, for which reason I was loath to let the boatmen pull up anchor. I fought this fish tooth and nail, and never gave it a foot of line that I could hold. All the same it kept taking yard after yard until there was a long line out. Over five hundred yards! Which is too many when there are other anchored boats around. One great feature of the Kovalovsky reel was that with five hundred yards of line out you still had a full spool left. With a long line, however, you need gradually to loosen your drag. Finally we had to up anchor and go after this mean devil.

  I decided that he was a whaler shark. He worked in a manner I had learned to associate with this species. He resembled a submarine going places.

  But we soon caught up with him and I got most of my line back. Then I had it out with him and stopped him in a little short of an hour.

  Nevertheless, hauling him up to the boat was a different proposition.

  Peter does not often indulge in remarks at my expense, but he mildly observed that I always liked to have a fish on for a good few hours. That English crack--"a good few hours"--nettled me, although I had to laugh.

  Wherefore, instead of enjoying myself I settled down to grim business. I might as well have done this in the first place.