Tales Of the Angler's El Dorado Nz Read online

  We put over a couple of teasers and headed out to sea. The morning was fresh, cool, pleasant, with scarcely a ripple on the water. There was a slow swell running. We passed some shearwater ducks, and then a flock of large gannets. They looked like boobies to me, being large and long-winged, with yellow heads, bodies mostly pure white, and wings black-edged. We ran out four or five miles, until the shore line to the north showed rather low and dim. Cape Brett, however, loomed up black and clear, a reliable landmark for fishermen to watch.

  We saw a big black fin, which even at a distance I knew to belong to a hammer-head shark. I did not have any particular yearning to catch him, but as sharks were counted by the New Zealand anglers and as I was in need of work, I dropped him a kahawai. He promptly took it, and I as promptly hooked him. I got about five minutes of work out of the loggy creature when he bit my line off; whereupon Captain Mitchell ran up, and seeing the shark surfacing again he handed him a bait.

  Presently I had the pleasure of seeing the Captain hard at work with bent rod. I left him then and ran on out to sea. In an hour or more he caught up with my boat, and sure enough had the hammer-head on the stern. "Hooked him in the tail!" yelled the Captain; and I called back, "All right, Lucky Mitchell!" That sobriquet of Lucky I had once given to Frank Stick, and it surely was deserved; but as Stick was not in the Captain's class for luck I had to switch the honor.

  We ran around outside for several hours without seeing any fish, and then headed back toward the cape. Presently I saw a swordfish jump, and I called out. The fish leaped three times. He was fully a mile away. We turned back and ran out at full speed. When we reached the place where I thought he had jumped we slowed down, and I began to troll a bait I had cut from a kahawai. My boatmen looked skeptical; but we had not completed our second circle when Arlidge let out a great yell and dived for the right teaser. Then I saw a big Marlin seize the teaser, break it off and throw it out. I let my bait back. He followed us, a wavering dark shape, coming closer, then dropping back, and again sheering toward us. I slacked off more line, and had a comfortable assurance this fish would bite. He was hungry, and he did bite, a good, hard, hungry tug. I let him run a hundred feet, and then struck. How those boatmen yelled! Captain Mitchell ran close. But the Marlin did not leap; he came up presently, made a swirl on the surface, and got free of the hook. I judged him to be a large Marlin, around three hundred pounds. The disappointment was keen, of course, but there was much satisfaction in having raised him by the teasers.

  After that we trolled around for a couple of hours without raising a fish; then we went in to the cape, where we found six other boats all fishing by the drifting method, and quite close together. I began to make observations with much curiosity and great interest. My boatmen caught a kahawai, hooked it through the back and dropped it overboard, letting out about seventy feet of line. Then we drifted. I did not feel that anything much would happen, so I contented myself with watching the other boats. I wondered about the long light rods, especially the native wood, tanekaha. Through my binoculars I could see anglers, rods, reels and lines quite distinctly. The tackle looked hopelessly inadequate, wholly miscast, as they say in motion pictures. But I was out to see and learn, and I was not preoccupied with my own ideas.

  By and by somebody yelled, and we saw by the commotion on one of the boats that a fish of some kind had taken a bait. I waited. The boat was quite near. Finally the angler elevated his rod. How amazing to me that he did not strike! The rod bent a little, the line ran out, and the boatman headed his boat away from the scene of disturbance. Presently the fish came up, a Marlin of average size, and began what my boatmen called "breaching". That is the whaler's term for a whale breaking on the surface. This Marlin did not perform as do our California Marlin. He leaped about half out, and threshed on the surface while the boatman ran the boat away in the opposite direction.

  "Now they'll lose that fish pronto," I soliloquized. And sure enough they did.

  During the next two hours I saw two other swordfish lost in the same way. Another angler, fast to another fish, drifted away almost out of sight. I heard next day that he caught his, a small Marlin. Small in those waters meant one hundred and seventy-five pounds, as the smallest ever caught weighed one seventy-one.

  Nothing happened to me. I was amazed to find after three hours that my kahawai was still alive and apparently little the worse for the brutal way in which he had been handled. I let him go and watched him swim away; then we ran back to camp.

  It was indeed a pleasant camp to return to. We got back at six, when the sun was still above the hills, and the valley seemed full of golden lights and purple shadows. There was no wind; not a ripple on the bay. The larks were holding a concert. We had a supper that was most satisfying to me, after a week of traveling through cities and villages where I could not get the kind of home cooking I like. And that sunset! As I sat in camp, I felt that it was indeed good to be alive. My face felt warm from the heat of the sun. At dark we went to bed. When I looked out of my tent window I could see the Southern Cross and the Pointers that pointed to it. How strange and beautiful! This constellation of the southern hemisphere is more famous with mariners than the Dipper or other heavenly bodies, except perhaps Polaris.

  I was up before sunrise. The grass held a thick coating of dew so thick my shoes were wet very quickly. The dew glistened from every blade and rush and leaf. The windless night accounted for such a precipitation.

  At seven-thirty we were on the fishing ground near Bird Island, trolling for bait. Captain Mitchell had his teasers out, and suddenly he yelled and pointed! I looked in time to see a Marlin back of the left teaser. The Captain had no bait ready, so lost a good chance for a strike. Again we ran out to sea. There was quite a goodly swell and a ripple, making it fine for trolling. I expected results. We made for outside, and went fully twelve miles. I sighted two sunfish, recognizing them easily by the peculiar side movement of the big fin. The other boat sighted a mako, but ran too close and put it down. On the return we traveled at quite a clip, too fast to troll, but I let out the teasers. From my place on deck I soon saw a waving purple fin, off to the starboard, and yelling to the boatmen I hurried aft; but I did not get to the teasers as quick as the swordfish. Four Marlin, one of them a monster, rushed the teasers; and two of them got hold. I pulled one teaser away while Arlidge pulled the other. Meanwhile Williams had dropped a kahawai overboard, with my hook in it; and as a Marlin rushed for it I grasped the rod hurriedly to get the tangled line clear. Just in time! The Marlin took that big six-pound bait, and went off with it. I was most curious. What would he do with it now he had it? Arlidge had thrown the clutch and we drifted to a stop. The Marlin took a good deal of line. After a while I decided he had enough, so I struck him. I pulled the big bait away from him, just as I had imagined I would; but he came back after it, and that time I let him have it longer than I ever let even a broadbill play with a bait. Then I hooked him, coming up solid on a taut line. There was considerable excitement on my boat and on Captain Mitchell's.

  The Marlin came out clear, showing himself to be one of the striped variety and around two hundred pounds in weight. Everybody got busy with cameras. He did not give us much of an exhibition, coming out only five times, and the last time not wholly out of the water. I brought him to the boat in sixteen minutes. He belonged to the same species as those we catch at Catalina. The little remoras, or sucking fish, were clinging to him, and dropped off as we hauled him astern.

  We trolled about for two hours trying to raise another or find the school we had raised, but were unsuccessful. Then we made for Piercy Rock.

  I found the same boats there as we had seen the day before, all close together, all drifting with live bait overboard. I tried it again, and kept my eyes open. Some angler hooked a fish and went off to the north. The last I saw of him he was miles away. One of the boatmen on another boat called to us that his angler had fought a mako for two hours, and had lost it. During my first drift by the rock I saw one bo
at hook and lose a fish. Before I left another got fast and ran off with his quarry. Of course, these anglers could not stop or hold a fish with the kind of tackle they used. I suppose they made it a process of exhaustion.

  Next morning a launch visited our camp and reported that one of the Deep Water Cove anglers had fought a shark for eight hours. The head and tail were brought to us for identification. I called it a common sand or ground shark. It must have weighed over five hundred. I wondered how many of the heavy fish hooked at Cape Brett and never landed belonged to some such class. Probably most of them. Drifting with bait deep down could never be anything but shark fishing. At least most of the fish hooked would be sharks of some variety.

  During our first two days' fishing we had raised six Marlin, one of which I caught. That looked favorable for trolling with teasers. This first Marlin weighed two hundred and twenty-six pounds, a long, slim, graceful fish. The largest of those we raised was twice the size of this one.

  Late afternoon of the second day was calm and still--not a stir in the titrees nor a ripple on the bay. The water reflected the rose-red trees and the golden hills in an effect that seemed more like a fairy enchantment than mirrored sea and land. After supper I climbed the hill to watch the sunset and the moonrise. The breathless stillness was something entirely new in my experience near the sea. No sound of surf! No moaning out on the bar! As the white moon soared above the hill the slopes and swales of grass took on a silver tint. I lingered to see and feel until I was so sleepy I could stay awake no longer.

  Morning came, still, soft, rosy, balmy, colorful. Larks, up with the break of day, poured forth their perfect melodies. The grass was heavy with dew. Mullet and garfish were breaking the surface of the still water near the beach. Wide circles waved away and disappeared.

  Beyond the bay the ocean, placid and smooth, resembled a mill pond. There was, however, a long low scarcely perceptible swell, which my watchful eyes detected. We ran out to the rocks for bait, and caught half a dozen kahawai in as many minutes. I saw a huge kingfish, so the boatman called it. He came up and lunged for a kahawai on the trolling line, making a sousing splash at the boat. If he was not a regular old yellowtail, belonging to the family seriola, then I missed my classification. The boatmen call this species kingfish; but kingfish belong to the mackerel family, and there was no mackerel about this fish. He looked to weigh close to a hundred, and made me keen to catch one.

  Outside of Cape Brett we found the sea one vast, glassy expanse. What a day to hunt for broadbill swordfish! I had not seen a better day in all my swordfishing at Catalina. Moreover, the air was pleasant, the shore line strikingly clear. I did not expect to see a broad-bill swordfish, but I certainly could not help looking for one on such a sea as that. Birds were scarce. There was no sign of small fish on the surface. We ran out several miles, and all the while I perched on the deck, scanning the sea near and far, all at once I saw fins. I called out and stood up. We thought the fins belonged to a Marlin. Then we saw two more fish farther on, and formed the same conclusion about them. Suddenly the one nearest came up higher, showing his dorsal fin. I stared. I could not believe my eyes. Surely that brown-hooked rakish leathery dorsal could not belong to a broadbill swordfish, one of my old gladiator friends way down here in the Antipodes! But it did.

  "Broadbill!" I yelled in wild excitement. "Look!... Three broadbills!"

  Leaping for my tackle, I called for Arlidge to run around in front of the nearest fish. "Careful!" I warned. "Not too close!" At that he got close enough to scare a Catalina broadbill out of a year's growth, but the consequence was not so dire here. Williams threw hook baited with an eight-pound kahawai hooked through the back. I deplored that, but it was too late. I let out a hundred feet of line. The swordfish came on at my left, not quite an equal distance away. We glided ahead of him, and I dragged the bait fairly close to his path. Suddenly he saw it. He dove. I waited tensely. Indeed, the others on board were tense, too. Nothing happened. I thought he had passed us by. Then he swirled up, showing half his bronze body, huge, glistening. I thrilled all over. He had lunged for the bait. I knew he would hit it, and so I called out. Did he hit it? Well, he nearly knocked the rod out of my hands. How that peculiar switching up of the line made me tremble! No other fish in the sea can give a line that motion.

  The swordfish struck again, again, and the fourth time. It was great. I could scarcely realize the truth. Then he took the bait and made off slowly at first, then increasing his speed until he was going fast and my line was whizzing off the reel. When we had half of it off, two hundred and fifty yards, I shut down on the drag, and as R. C. would say, "handed it to him".

  In a moment more I knew I was hooked to a real old Xiphias gladius. He came up and showed his enormous shoulders, his high dorsal and half of his tail. Then he sounded.

  The fight began, and, as I wanted to excite these boatmen who had scarcely ever heard of a broadbill, I performed rather violently and strenuously, which soon told upon me. I got out of breath and slacked up, until the fish ran out the line. He went down deep, which was disappointing as I wanted him to do some surface stunts. He never showed again. In half an hour I was wet with sweat and thoroughly warmed up. I fought him hard. Long before the hour passed I knew I had on a very heavy swordfish. I could not do much with him, though sometimes it appeared I had the mastery. At the hour-and-three-quarters mark I shut down on the drag and let him pull. Here I found to my surprise that he could tow the boat. It was not a small boat, either. That, I knew, would be hard on him; and thereafter, when I needed a rest, I let him drag us a bit. Three-quarters of an hour of this sort of thing wore him out to the extent that I was soon getting line back and daring to hope for the best. He was so enormously heavy that I could not lift him more than a foot or so at each pump of the rod. He had been down a thousand feet. All this fight had taken place with the fish at a great depth, which was new in my experience. But every broadbill teaches you something new. Finally I was lifting this swordfish, beginning to feel assured that I might get him, when the hook began to rip. I felt it rip--rip--and come out! I reeled in the long line without saying a word. The boatman felt the loss even more keenly than I. Yet I could not help deploring the usual manifestation of my exceedingly miserable luck as a fisherman; particularly in this instance, because the capture of the greatest game fish of all the Seven Seas here in the Bay of Islands waters of New Zealand would have meant much toward the development of the resort.

  Later in the day I sighted a big Marlin fin on the surface of a swell; and that pleased me, for it proved that these New Zealand swordfish ride the swells the same as in other waters.

  About three o'clock we ran in to the cape, and took to drifting, along with the other boats. Here again I rested while I was fishing (which was quite unique for me) and at the same time I kept close watch on the other boats, my glass bringing them right under my eyes. We let tide and wind take us at their will; and when we got half a mile or so off the rock we would run back and drift over again. During three of these drifts, of about an hour's duration each, I saw four boats lose fish, Marlin I was sure. One boat went out to sea with a fish, and I did not see what happened. Later we learned the angler of this boat caught his Marlin. I saw two anglers of another boat hook a fish on two rods. Despite this they ran off with the fish. Finally I got so curious to see the result that I had my boatmen follow. When we came upon the two anglers they had brought up a two-hundred-pound mako and at the moment were quite busily engaged. They had harpooned the fish. I saw the huge iron sticking out. The boatman was beating the mako over the head with a hammer, and another man was stabbing at the fish with what looked like a narrow spade. My conclusion was that the mako was not having a very happy time. He certainly had no opportunity to make what we anglers call a grand finish. This mako, the first I ever saw, and then did not have a good look at it, appeared to be a wild game fish. I grew more interested to catch one and see for myself what were its fighting qualities and its particular physical features
.

  As we ran back to camp the sky was overclouded, and the wind keen. It came off the land and threatened storm. By nightfall a strong breeze was blowing. If we had not been so well protected by hills we might have had to hold down our tents. At intervals during the night I awoke to thrill at the sound of the wind, strange in this far-away country. When I crawled out at dawn my first observation was that the grass was dry. Not a drop of dew! My second observation was that neither wind nor lowering sky affected the larks. What melody! There must have been half a dozen right around camp, singing to make me remember the beauty of the new day and joy there is in life.

  When we got outside of Piercy Rock that morning we found a choppy sea and one most uncomfortable to fish. Captain Mitchell lagged behind for some reason or other, so I slowed down and waited. When he came up I found the reason was that he had caught a Marlin, his very first, a fair-sized fish. I whooped my congratulations ending with, "Lucky Mitchell!"

  We trolled that rough sea for several hours. No fins! No fish! Birds were plentiful, but they were wheeling around as if searching as hopelessly as we were. About eleven o'clock we ran in behind Piercy Rock. Seven other boats were there drifting. Schools of kahawai were shining on the surface, and flocks of gulls hovered near, sometimes alighting on the water, in the thick of the schools, evidently feeding on the tiny minnows the kahawai were chasing. The surge against the beetling cliffs was magnificent. Roar and crash and boom! Then a white cascade came pouring down from the bronze slant of rock, to disappear in the great gulf left by the receding swell. Soon the surge heaved in again, to swell and grow and mount high, and go crashing to ruin. Restless and eternal sea! How it chafed the rocks! Those great cliffs really looked impervious to the contending tide; but a second glance showed that the sea was wearing away the rock and in time, in the ages to come, would conquer.