American Angler in Australia (1937) Read online

  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.

  It was a grand background for a fishing setting. At once I conceived an idea of photographing a leaping swordfish with Sydney Heads and the gateway to the harbor, and that marvelous bridge all lined against the sky behind that leaping fish. That day was futile, however, much to Mr.

  Bullen's disappointment. The next day was rough. A hard wind ripped out of the northeast; the sea was ridged blue and white; the boat tipped and rolled and dived until I was weary of hanging on to my seat and the rod.

  We trolled all over the ocean for hours, until afternoon, then came in to drift off the Heads. Still, somehow, despite all this misery there was that thing which holds a fisherman to his task. When I climbed up on the dock I had the blind staggers and the floor came up to meet me. The usual crowd was there to see me, but I could not sign any autographs that night.

  The third morning dawned warm and still, with a calm ocean and blue sky.

  Starting early, we trolled for bait along the bluffs as far south as Point Bondi. I had engaged the services of Billy Love, market fisherman and shark-catcher of Watson's Bay, to go with us as guide to the shark reefs. We caught no end of bait, and soon were trolling off Bondi. We ran ten miles out, and then turned north and ran on until opposite Manly Beach, where we headed in again to run past that famous bathing-beach where so many bathers had been attacked by sharks, and on down to Love's shark-grounds directly opposite the harbor entrance between the Heads, and scarcely more than a mile outside the Heads.

  We put down an anchor, or "killick," as our guide called it, in about two hundred feet of water. A gentle swell was moving the surface of the sea.

  The sun felt hot and good. Putting cut bait overboard, we had scarcely settled down to fishing when we had a strike from a small shark. It turned out to be a whaler of about three hundred pounds.

  Love was jubilant over its capture.

  "Shark meat best for sharks," he avowed, enthusiastically. "Now we'll catch a tiger sure!"

  That sharks were cannibals was no news to me, but in this instance the fact was more interesting. Emil put a bonito bait over and Love attached a little red balloon to the line a fathom or two above the leader. This was Mr. Bullen's method, except that he tied the float about one hundred and fifty feet above the bait, and if a strong current was running he used lead.

  For my bait Love tied on a well-cut piece of shark, about two pounds in weight, and added what he called a fillet to hang from the point of the hook. I was an expert in baits and I remarked that this one looked almost good enough to eat.

  Then he let my bait down twenty-five fathoms without float or sinker.

  This occurred at noon, after which we had lunch, and presently I settled down comfortably to fish and absorb my surroundings.

  The sun was hot, the gentle motion of the boat lulling, the breeze scarcely perceptible, the sea beautiful and compelling, and there was no moment that I could not see craft of all kinds, from great liners to small fishing-boats. I sat in my fishing-chair, feet on the gunwale, the line in my hand, and the passage of time was unnoticeable. In fact, time seemed to stand still.

  The hours passed, until about mid-afternoon, and conversation lagged.

  Emil went to sleep, so that I had to watch his float. Peter smoked innumerable cigarettes, and then he went to sleep. Love's hopes of a strike began perceptibly to fail. He kept repeating about every hour that the sharks must be having an off day. But I was quite happy and satisfied.

  I watched three albatross hanging around a market boat some distance away. Finally this boat ran in, and the huge white-and-black birds floated over our way. I told Love to throw some pieces of bait in. He did so, one of which was a whole bonito with its sides sliced off.

  The albatross flew towards us, landed on their feet a dozen rods away, and then ran across the water to us. One was shy and distrustful. The others were tame. It happened, however, that the suspicious albatross got the whole bonito, which he proceeded to gulp down, and it stuck in his throat.

  He drifted away, making a great to-do over the trouble his gluttony had brought him. He beat the water with his wings and ducked his head under to shake it violently.

  Meanwhile the other two came close, to within thirty feet, and they emitted strange low, not unmusical, cries as
they picked up the morsels of fish Love pitched them. They were huge birds, pure white except across the back and along the wide-spreading wings. Their black eyes had an Oriental look, a slanting back and upwards, which might have been caused by a little tuft of black feathers. To say I was in a seventh heaven was putting it mildly. I awoke Emil, who, being a temperamental artist and photographer, went into ecstasies with his camera. "I can't believe my eyes!" he kept exclaiming. And really the lovely sight was hard to believe, for Americans who knew albatross only through legend and poetry.

  Finally the larger and wilder one that had choked over his fish evidently got it down or up and came swooping down on the others. They then engaged in a fight for the pieces our boatman threw them. They ate a whole bucketful of cut bonito before they had their fill, and one of them was so gorged that he could not rise from the surface. He drifted away, preening himself, while the others spread wide wings and flew out to sea.

  Four o'clock found us still waiting for a bite. Emil had given up; Peter averred there were no sharks. Love kept making excuses for the day, and like a true fisherman kept saying, "We'll get one tomorrow." But I was not in a hurry. The afternoon was too wonderful to give up. A westering sun shone gold amid dark clouds over the Heads. The shipping had increased, if anything, and all that had been intriguing to me seemed magnified. Bowen, trolling in Bullen's boat, hove in sight out on the horizon.

  My companions obviously gave up for that day. They were tired of the long wait. It amused me. I remarked to Peter: "Well, old top, do you remember the eighty-three days we fished without getting a bite?"

  "I'll never forget that," said Pete.

  "And on the eighty-fourth day I caught my giant Tahitian striped marlin?"

  "Right, sir," admitted Peter.

  Love appeared impressed by the fact, or else what he thought was fiction, but he said, nevertheless: "Nothing doing today. We might as well go in."

  "Ump-umm," I replied, in cowboy parlance. "We'll hang a while longer."