Denizens of the Deep

by Philip Wylie

  “I know,” they will say (on the shores of the Red Sea or the Yellow Sea, or the coast of Wales or Africa), “a special spot where the monsters really bite!” And then they take you there.

  So—in sum—the IGFA keeps world records of marine game fish taken according to its rules on graduated sizes of tackle. The rules have been submitted for acceptance to the member clubs; any change in them is made only after a year or so of discussion and a vote, majority-determined, by the member clubs—not, as some think, by IGFA officials. The IGFA also acts, the world over, as a sort of international goodwill embassy from and to people who fish. It publishes the up-to-date rules. It publishes, from time to time, a yearbook reporting its planet-wide news. It publishes, annually, a chart of world records, brought up to date. And it has plans for extending its scope to include scientific information.

  For nowhere else on earth is there such an association of human beings as that which exists amongst the membership of the IGFA member clubs: men and women by the hundreds of thousands who are familiar with fishing and the sea, fond of both and devoted to their pursuit. These people are ideally suited to collecting certain kinds of scientific information which would help enormously in filling out unknown chapters of sea knowledge. Future yearbooks will show what IGFA people can do in that respect. For in it will be a huge table, by months, of what fish may be caught where on this planet, with what baits—not just a superguide for sportsmen who want a new kind of fishing vacation but a huge survey of where the fish are, and go, when—that will be of great interest to science. The officers of the IGFA know that the training and the observation of sports fishermen can be put to countless other uses, of value to science. Even now, some enigmas and problems of ichthyologists in various parts of the earth are being sent to IGFA headquarters—whence they go out to appropriate clubs and persons for an answer that often overwhelms the inquiring scientists with useful data.

  It is apparently a “law of human nature” that the sea hunter will become the observer, the observer an amateur naturalist and he, in turn, will take such an interest in passing on the wonders he sees to science that he becomes more than an amateur. Indeed, many anglers, like many hunters, have put aside their killing equipment and replaced it with the gear for observation and study. So the IGFA hopes and expects, in the years to come, to be increasingly not a sports society alone, but an organized medium for gathering marine data.

  In recent years, the methods and styles of marine angling have increased in number and in variety—as have the materials at the disposal of the angler. People have found (for instance) that brook-trout tackle will take many ocean fishes—and very excitingly. Black-bass gear (bait-casting tackle) takes even bigger and more violent fish than can be caught anywhere, in fresh water. Spinning does the same. There are other methods. The IGFA has been pressed to set up rules, standards and new world-record charts for all these and many allied types of “light-tackle” marine angling.

  The subject has been exhaustively studied by officers and by interested member clubs (of which, at present, not many are concerned with ultra-light-tackle fishing). So far, no feasible system has been adopted for the fair, comparative appraisal of these many—often highly individualistic—styles of angling. Other associations and publications have made the effort and have failed, as did the IGFA. Acceptable “standards,” even where so many methods are concerned, can be established, but their administration is, so far as the IGFA can determine at this time, too complicated for practical, world-wide administration.

  Goggle-fishermen (the men—and ladies—who dive beneath the waves with or without a sustaining “lung” to let them breathe under water), too, have petitioned the IGFA to set up a world-record chart for them. But their case, also, presented problems so far not adequately solved. For one thing, they do not catch fish by rod and reel at all—however “sporting” their manner of fish hunting may seem to be; for another, practically every goggle-fisherman has his own idea of what constitutes the right “weapon.”

  Hence—though the new materials for lines and rods have been tested, sent about to all member clubs for scrutiny and finally voted sporting (or not)—these innumerable and comparatively new ocean-fishing methods have not been included in what would be countless new panels of “records.” The IGFA sticks to its old classifications, of which “twelve-pound test” (formerly “three-thread”) line is the lightest—light enough line, surely, for any man who casts or lowers a bait in the ocean!

  The cost of these many enterprises is defrayed by one man, to whom millions are indebted: Michael (or, as I’ve called him here, “Mike”) Lerner. Pretty nearly everybody who knows him—and that includes potentates and porters in every segment of the round world’s map—calls him Mike, anyhow. We might as well.

  The Australian, Clive Firth, who suggested that we Americans should keep the records, assumed that fishing clubs would share the large cost. Mike decided otherwise. Already among the world’s foremost big-game hunters, anglers—and a leading collector of museum specimens—Mike was a man in early middle life. In addition to his land-and-sea-roving, he had been one of the partners in the Lerner Stores (if that doesn’t ring a bell in your head, ask your wife!), so he decided he owed a debt to his favorite sport of ocean fishing. Most men would have been satisfied with the fact that they’d contributed many huge specimens of fishes, and in some cases whole rooms of specimens, to a half dozen of the world’s leading museums. Mike wasn’t.

  The IGFA, Mike decided, wasn’t going to cost any angler a dime. It didn’t—it doesn’t—and he has made provision so that it probably never will. Mike didn’t want the IGFA to be a “patriarchal” organization, however—a Mike-bossed affair. So it is the member clubs who make all the decisions on matters of principle and rules; on other matters, the committee decides. Among them, Mike has one vote, as do all the rest. Since the officers were picked for their experience, knowledge, reliability, tenacity and judgment, it can be suspected that Mike may be overruled. He sometimes is, since he is not piscatorially omniscient (and even though, if you, as an angler, were to have to pick a single judge of your fishing feats, you could not find a fairer or more thorough man, this side of Judgment Day!).

  Many gentlemen of distinction, of means and good will cannot wholly resist turning a “foundation” or an “institution” set up by themselves into an instrument for collateral, personal publicity. The American public accepts that small vanity with tolerance—while it also gratefully accepts the vast benefits of numerous contributions to its weal. Mike didn’t feel that way, either. Mike has no press agent. Nobody was ever hired to do “publicity” for the IGFA. The news it sends out (new records of a spectacular sort, word of rule changes or comment anent arguments amongst anglers) is dispatched by Miss LaMonte.

  Being the founder of IGFA actually has meant a thousand times as much work as glory for Mike. He was asked—during the war, for example—to form a committee of experts to redesign the fishing gear for lifeboats and life rafts; he spent a long time in that important, tricky chore. The equipment his committee produced on Government request is standard, now, in all services. Mike then saw to it that a second “fishing kit”—a kit for fishing for fun—went out to servicemen who, in myriads, were spending the weary war months alongside some of the world’s best fishing water—without even a hook or a line! Mike paid for the first several thousand of these “recreational fishing kits”; subsequently the Red Cross gave them away overseas. They were such a success that, finally, the Government took over their manufacture and distribution as part of its military program.

  Mike also helped stage-manage an expedition (reported elsewhere in this volume) by which meat-hungry troops on lonely Ascension Island were taught to fish and so to furnish fresh meat for their table. He, and his redoubtable wife, Helen—who is, among women, as an angler and big-game hunter, what Mike is among men—were also asked by the Government, toward the end of the war, to make up a “show” of their movies and of samples of guns and rods, to
tour overseas in hospitals and areas behind the front. The idea was to demonstrate what “super-sport” meant, to sports-loving American G.I.’s. So the Lerners became troopers—and their “tour” was a sensational success. It should have been! For they can answer almost any outdoor-sports query in the hunting-fishing field. And their movies—colored film of themselves actually hunting and fishing—are fascinating. At times, their pictures would satisfy the most thrill-crazed spectator alive—since, in these films, it is all-too-evident that to get a rifle shot or a film record or both at once, it often darn near cost a Mr. or a Mrs. Lerner!

  Following the “law of human nature” I set down earlier, Mike finally went into the ultimate field: pure science. For the American Museum of Natural History he built, on the island of Bimini, a “field station” for research. There, in a magnificent laboratory, well-equipped, with a residence that comfortably houses as many as a dozen top research people at a time, scientists can study the twenty or more different ocean environments that meet at Bimini. Hundreds of individuals, dozens of institutions have now contributed to that center. Bookfuls of scientific papers are pouring from the laboratory. And it has become—owing partly to the value of primitive sea life for cell study and to its year-round availability—a cancer research center. Everything, from lab space to laundry, for every scientist who comes to the Lerner Marine Laboratory, is free! But that is another story—mentioned here merely to indicate that when a man starts fishing in the sea, what he finally “catches” will depend upon his imagination, his will and his personal capacity as much as upon his first bait or his final luck.

  That’s how the IGFA came into being. That’s what it has led to, so far! Its worth to human relations the world over cannot be exaggerated. Its value as an umpire in a great sport is deeply appreciated by many and should be understood by all. Those who serve as its officers love fishing—and they love people, too. The boundless future of IGFA as a special instrument for gathering and sifting the unknowns of the sea gives it still another imposing facet.

  An Australian dreamed it up. An American made it a fact, surpassing the dream. And everybody who wets a line in salt water—whatever his nationality, his bait or the fish he hopes to hang—has reason to rejoice in the result, the IGFA.

  Some fishing

  Listen to this tale of woe

  Fishing is mostly tough luck. “The big ones get away” is its basic slogan. And the bigger a fish the angler seeks, the tougher his misfortune is likely to be. A universal belief that fishermen are philosophers is explained by that circumstance: they have to be. A man unable to take a philosophical attitude toward the tribulations of life certainly could not enjoy a sport in which immense patience is required, and a sport in which the reward for patience is often a titanic battle ending in utter defeat.

  The calamities that may befall an angler who whips a brook trout are fairly limited. He can, to be sure, fall into a deep pool and drown; he can step on a rattlesnake or in a hornet’s nest; he can concentrate so hard on a fighting trout that he fails to evade a bull charging across a pasture. (Once in re this last problem, I was obliged to abandon fishing and dive over a barbed wire fence into a brook to escape a rushing bull.) But when a man takes himself out to sea with vastly heavier gear, he greatly increases the likelihood of misfortune even though he is reasonably safe from bulls, hornets, and serpents.

  Consider, for example, an expedition made by me many years ago to the famed island of Bimini in the British West Indies. Fishing on the good ship Neptune, with Harold Schmitt, a redoubtable guide, I put in a solid week trying for blue marlin. A week becomes a long time, when you rise with the dawn and come back to shore at sunset, when the sea is a daylong, brazen glare of tropical sunshine and the brightwork on the boat becomes too hot to touch and when, after seven solid days, you haven’t had a single bite! Under such conditions one is likely to grow restless and to reflect that one is spending a great deal of time (not to mention money!) doing exactly nothing in a fairly painful manner.

  My mind was running in such a vein when, in the middle of the seventh afternoon, one of the big bonefish baits splashing along from an outrigger was hit suddenly and hard. “Barracuda!” Harold yelled from up on the canopy.

  A man set for blue marlin is not interested in catching barracudas. They merely spoil baits, as a rule, without becoming hooked—for even a large ’cuda seldom grabs a whole, five-pound bonefish; he snatches perhaps half, cutting it in two.

  I had rushed to the heavy rod when the fish splashed at the bait and set it in the gimbal of the fighting chair. I reeled in the bisected bait so we could put on another. But, as it came near the boat, the ’cuda swiped at it again. So I decided to try to catch the ’cuda as a kind of consolation for days of doing nothing at all. I threw the big reel on “free spool”—letting the line run out again. The bait drifted back and sank. That was to give the ’cuda plenty of time to pick up the last fragment of bonefish—which contained the hook.

  When I thought I’d “dropped back” far enough for the ’cuda to devour the bait, I threw on the drag. There was, in this process, a period of about a fifth of a second in which I did not have a hand on the rod or reel and merely supported the tackle with my knee. One hand was resting on the free-spooling reel as a light brake, to prevent backlash. The other, very briefly, was used to snap on the brake or, as some anglers say, to put the reel “in gear.”

  During that fraction of a second, however, as I got the reel in gear, the line came tight. It tightened, in fact, with a violence and suddenness never before experienced by me. The heavy rod was yanked clear of my knee. I snatched at it and my fingers actually grazed it; a tenth of one second of additional time might have allowed me to get a grip on it. But there wasn’t even that extra split instant. The rod leaped from the gimbal. The reel turned over in the air and whacked mightily against the transom in the stern. Then the rod and reel bounced high and seemed to hang suspended in the sunshine for a moment before falling into the Neptune’s foamy wake.

  I was on my feet at once. I saw the tackle—eight hundred dollars’ worth of it—settling in the cobalt Gulf Stream. I saw something else, presently. A tremendous blue marlin, deep-hooked, surged fifteen feet into the air not fifty feet astern! It made, in the ensuing moments, half-a-dozen sky-stabbing jumps in the attempt to shake my hook. Failing, it vanished, dragging behind it the eight hundred dollars’ worth of tackle. That night I radiophoned to Miami for a new rod, reel and line.

  Any marlin fisherman will understand what had happened, and how I had blundered. That marlin had been following my bait, deep down, out of sight, when the ’cuda cut in from the side and hit. Barracuda—and the invisible marlin—had then chased the mutilated bait together as I reeled in. When I dropped back, however, the marlin, not the ’cuda, took the bait. And, having seized it close to our stern, the marlin turned about and headed for parts unknown at full speed.

  Just then, just exactly then, I’d slapped on the drag—and failed to keep a firm grip on the rod. I could have managed to hold it with my knee if the twenty or thirty pound ’cuda had been hooked. But the force of four or five hundred pounds of blue marlin taking off at perhaps thirty miles an hour relieved me of the tackle. We found, later, that the reel had hit the transom so hard it loosened twelve two-inch screws in mahogany!

  Hard luck enough for one trip? Not at all! The very next day, on a different rod (we were waiting for more marlin gear to come over by plane, that afternoon), I hooked a palpably big fish. Mrs. Wylie, who was fishing beside me, hooked one, also. We fought our “double header” (without knowing the identity of the quarry) for about a half hour before we began to see that, when her fish ran, mine did, and when I got line back from my fish, she got line; when her fish tore off in a new direction, mine took the same path. So we realized we had both hooked the same fish. That is a fairly common piscatorial hardship and an irritating one, since a catch made on two rods doesn’t count as anybody’s prize.

  After perhaps an hour, we
saw our fish—a big hammer-head shark. We weren’t interested in catching shark. But we were interested in testing the steel rod which had been sent to me for that purpose by a tackle manufacturer. So my wife deliberately broke her line and I fished alone simply to see how much “pressure” the rod could stand. It stood a lot. Before long I was “working” on that shark with my drag screwed up tight, bending way back, like a man shoveling dirt over his head. I expected, of course, to break the line at some point in this experiment—for it was only fifteen-thread, with (in those days) a breaking strain of forty-five pounds.

  But it was the rod that ultimately snapped. It snapped with a loud sound when bent almost double. And I felt a sharp pain in my left foot. The hollow steel shaft had broken in two in the middle. I still hung onto the butt. However, while so drastically bent, the rod had acted as a bow, the taut line as a bowstring, and the tip had broken off to become an arrow. The “arrow” was driven down into the top of my foot. It made a circular cut, a cross-section of the rod, and only bone stopped the downthrust. Blood was flowing freely on the Neptune’s deck and we put in for shore. To this day I bear a circular scar which looks as if it had been made by a miniature cooky cutter. The shark? In the excitement, or during the subsequent first aid, it got away.

  End of bad luck? Not entirely. Two days later I “hung” another unidentified but very large fish and fought it all afternoon through squall-driven rain and past half a dozen roaring waterspouts. Night fell and new squalls appeared. The lights of Bimini were lost to view and we were obliged to break off the fish to avoid disaster—disaster in pitch-black, tempestuous seas which heaved around us and thundered frighteningly over near-by snaggle-toothed coral reefs. On that particular trip, in fact, we caught only a single fish. But, in all fairness, I should add that it was a white marlin, taken on light tackle, that it weighed ninety-nine pounds and is still the record in its tackle class for the Rod and Reel Club of Miami Beach.