American Angler in Australia (1937) (15 page)

I had intended to include in this book all my data on man-eating sharks
,
and a chronicle of my three-and-a-half months among the islands of th
e
Great Barrier Reef. But including photographs, this would make too larg
e
a volume. Besides, I aim to go back to the Barrier. It is a mos
t
fascinating and remarkable place--fifteen thousand square miles of water
s
and reefs, which have not been fished and which have incredibl
e
possibilities. I was able to identify, if not classify, three new kind
s
of spearfish that have never yet been taken on a rod. One is what wa
s
called a baby swordfish, from three to four feet long, which is really
a
matured fish. In shape it resembles a black Marlin.

A huge fifteen-foot swordfish with a short bill and broad stripes ha
s
been seen by market fishermen. And a species of sailfish, different fro
m
those I was the first to catch in the Gulf Stream, on the Pacific Coast
,
and in the South Seas, has been taken by market fishermen. This sailfis
h
has a dorsal fin that is highest at the forward end and slopes back t
o
the tail. These three fish alone will make the fame of the Barrier.

The queen fish, a beautiful silvery dolphin-like leaper, is one of th
e
greatest fish I have caught, equal to the gallo, or rooster fish, of th
e
Mexican coast. The mackerel that occurs in large schools is a fin
e
light-tackle fish for anglers who do not care for the strenuous work.

There is also a sea pike, a big barracuda-like fish that grows to twelv
e
feet and more and which would be wonderful game. Undoubtedly there ar
e
more and larger fish to discover around these reefs.

The future of Australian fishing is no longer problematical.

Marlin have been sighted off Sydney Heads every month in the year. Thre
e
days before I sailed on the Mariposa, August 16th, a market fisherma
n
saw five Marlin riding the swells not far offshore. In winter! A few day
s
before that one of my men, flying down from Newcastle, saw a school o
f
huge tiger sharks, none, he claimed, under eighteen feet, attacking
a
baby whale and fighting its mother. The airmen circled lower and fle
w
round and round, not only to observe the fight, but to make sure of wha
t
was happening; and they saw the tiger sharks tear the baby whale t
o
pieces.

Another market fisherman quite recently saw a white shark much longe
r
than his boat, which was twenty-two feet.

Then, as I have written about before, and wish to repeat, there are
a
number of cases where market fishermen were towing sharks too large t
o
pull on board, and have had these huge white devils take them in on
e
bite. A ten- or twelve-foot shark snapped off in one bite!

A thirty-nine foot white shark was stranded at Montague Island afte
r
swallowing a small shark that had been caught on a set line. A
n
ineteen-foot white shark was shot and harpooned off the pier a
t
Bermagui.

Dr. David Stead, of Sydney, a scientist of international reputation
,
corroborates my claim that there are white sharks up to eighty feet an
d
more. If there are not, where do the white-shark teeth, five inche
s
across the base, come from? These have been dredged from the ocean bed.

This matter of Australian sharks is astounding. The waters aroun
d
Australia are alive with many species of sharks. Why not some unknow
n
species, huge and terrible? Who can tell what forms of life swim an
d
battle in the ocean depths?

I predict that if I myself do not catch one of these incredible monsters
,
some one else will. I believe there are eighty-foot sharks. Rare, surely
,
but they occur! I believed in the sea serpent before the Englis
h
scientist, Lieut.-Commander R. T. Gould, collected his authentic data an
d
made the myth a fact.

It takes imagination to be a fisherman--to envision things and captures t
o
be. Every fisherman, even if he is a skeptic and ridicules me and an
y
supporters about these great fish, betrays himself when he goes fishing
,
for he goes because he imagines there are trout or salmon or Marlin, an
d
surely a big one, waiting to strike for him. If I had not had a vivid an
d
fertile imagination I would not have been the first to catch sailfish an
d
swordfish in different and unfished waters of the world.

Off Freemantle large tunny have been caught by marketmen and hundreds to
o
large to hold have broken away.

Then the West Coast of Australia! Here will be found the grandest fish.

For years I have known that the Indian Ocean contains the most marvelou
s
unfished waters, and the greatest of fish in numbers and size. I hav
e
been on the track of the monster Indian Ocean sailfish for years. Bu
t
never until I met the Danish scientist, Schmidt, world authority on eels
,
who had seen these sailfish, did I really believe the data I ha
d
accumulated.

"Sailfish?" he repeated after me. "Oh yes indeed. I have seen them like
a
fleet of sailing schooners."

"And--how big?" I choked, now realizing I was on the eve of my mos
t
wonderful discovery.

"Thirty to forty feet, I should say. Their sails were easily ten fee
t
high and fifteen feet long."

Shark's Bay, three hundred miles north of Perth, is known to contai
n
schools of huge sharks.

Schools of sharks do not inhabit waters that are not full of fish. Al
l
the way up the West Coast to Darwin, these great fish I believe in an
d
have been writing about have been seen.

I could fill pages with data I have collected. Some of it, most of it, i
s
fact.

So I make my claim for Australian waters and reiterate it and will stan
d
by it. So great is my faith that already I have enlisted the help of th
e
Australian Government and my influential friends there, motion-pictur
e
and radio people, all of which, added to private resources and unlimite
d
tackle, will be used to prove that Australia has fish and fishing whic
h
will dwarf all the rest known in the world today.

As for the dream and the color and the glory of such a romance, such a
n
adventure, these are for the time being overshadowed by the immensity o
f
the plan, and its scope, and its appalling difficulties. But these wil
l
pass and then there will come the joy of anticipation--of trolling sunn
y
strange waters, of purple coral reefs and strips of white sand, and th
e
shore haunts of the aboriginal--the myriads of shells, of weird birds an
d
grand trees--and always the striving for the unattainable, whether it be
a
great fish or the ultimate beauty.

I have been ridiculed and criticized for claiming that Australia'
s
thirteen thousand miles of coast would yield the greatest game fish o
f
any waters yet discovered in the world, and all the year round.

Years ago when I predicted seven-hundred-, eight-hundred-, an
d
thousand-pound Marlin for New Zealand, I was laughed at, even in Ne
w
Zealand itself. But I and my fishing partners caught black Marlin o
f
these weights, and established the marvelous fishing that New Zealand ha
s
enjoyed for a protracted and waning period.

After five years of correspondence with Australian scientists
,
missionaries, market fishermen, and sportsmen, and seven months o
f
practical and strenuous observation and fishing, I stake my reputatio
n
that Australia will yield the most incredible and magnificent big-gam
e
fish of known and unknown species that the fishing world has eve
r
recorded.

Added to what I just wrote about Great Barrier fish, let me append on
e
more fact.

I have located broadbill swordfish, the genuine Ziphias gladius, in th
e
shallow waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria, spawning on the white sand, a
s
thick as fence pickets!

THE END

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