American Angler in Australia (1937) (3 page)

"No, it wasn't," I replied. "The idea is when you have a fish rush you
r
bait to let him have it."

"Where's your--fish?" gasped Gus.

"He doesn't want to stop going places, so I'll have to stop him."

I hooked the Marlin, and he leaped splendidly, fully six hundred fee
t
away and close to the camera boat. The surprised crew and picture men
,
who didn't know what was happening, nearly fell overboard. But they soo
n
got busy. Bowen appeared to be frantic because the Warrens were reluctan
t
to run their boat at the fish. They were right, of course. A second boa
t
has no business near another one in which an angler has hooked a fish.

But Bowen's idea was to shoot motion pictures. He did not care if the
y
did risk cutting my line.

What with the jumping antics of the Marlin and the attempts of the Ti
n
Hare to get on top of it we had lots of fun for a little while. I mad
e
rather short work of that Marlin, because I discovered I, too, wanted th
e
credit of the first one for 1936. We soon had him on board. Peter beame
d
and congratulated me. He also waved the Marlin flag at the other boat.

Baiting up again, we ran out. Gus had photographed some of the leaps o
f
this fish, and he was happy, too. Presently I saw a Marlin slide out an
d
shake himself, perhaps half a mile out. I pointed. Peter said he had see
n
the splash. He did not need to be told to hook the Avalon up and speed i
n
the direction I had pointed.

"Shut her off, Peter," I called, and stood up. "Work around here."

Presently I saw the purple form of a Marlin looming up, and my ol
d
familiar cry pealed out, "There he is!" I have probably called that ou
t
thousands of times.

This fish came directly to the bait. But he did not take it at once, as I
e
xpected. He weaved to and fro. He rushed it, came up alongside it, struc
k
at it. "Son of a gun is leary," I said.

"He'll take it," replied Peter, and sure enough he did. But he let it go.

And though he came back, time and again, he would not strike. No doubt h
e
thought there was something wrong about that bait and he was not hungr
y
enough to be unwary. When Marlin are hungry they will strike; when the
y
are ravenous they will stick their heads out of the water back of th
e
boat to take a bait.

In the next three hours I raised several more Marlin off the point of th
e
island, but they had evidently fed and would not take. The other boa
t
raised one, and then Bowen was too slow in pulling his bait away from
a
hammerhead. It got the bait and the hook. Evidently this made Bowe
n
angry, for he began to jerk and haul strenuously. His drag was to
o
strong. I feared the shark would pull him overboard. The rod wagged t
o
and fro, and then suddenly, when the shark pulled free of the hook, Bowe
n
went over backwards, clean out of the chair.

Soon after that I sunk my bait to a gray shadow, and soon was fast t
o
some kind of a shark. I worked hard on it, for practice more tha
n
anything else, and soon had it up.

"Darned old rearimi!" ejaculated Peter. But Pat, the market fisherman o
n
our boat, said it was a gray pointer. Anyway, Peter gaffed it, and th
e
two of them held the shark for a splashing melee while the camera boa
t
stood by. I heard Bowen yell through his megaphone, "Roll 'em along!"

And in Hollywood parlance that meant to start the electric motors on th
e
motion-picture cameras.

After that fun we caught another bait. I noticed that the sea was risin
g
outside and I thought we had better start back to Bermagui. Still I
l
ingered to try for some more. Presently Gus hooked a good-sized bonito.

We were close to the rocks where the herd of sea lions held forth. Half
a
dozen big bulls dived off and made for the fish. I jerked the rod out o
f
Gus's hand. But hard as I pumped and wound I could not get that bonit
o
away from them.

Then the camera crew went wild. It had not occurred to me till then jus
t
what an unusual picture that action would make. But with seals fightin
g
over my bait, leaping out, darting to and fro, I soon realized the fact.

So instead of trying to get my bait in I left it out there and jerked i
t
this way and that to excite the seals further. This worked. The sea lion
s
made such a commotion that others piled off the rocks until the se
a
appeared alive with graceful brown forms on the surface and under.

Then what I might have suspected actually happened. I hooked a big bul
l
sea lion in the chin, and he did not like that at all. In fact he made
a
vociferous and violent protest. He stood half his massive body high ou
t
of the water and tussled like a huge dog. He jerked his head from side t
o
side, while the bait dangled about for the other sea lions to snatch it.

Here I was hooked to a six-hundred-pound sea lion, on a bait tackle! I
d
id not want to kill the beast or leave the hook, leader, and part of th
e
line hanging from his jaw. We had to follow the beast to keep him fro
m
running off more line. I was in a quandary. Peter was wrathful. "Haul th
e
plugger up here. I'll gaff him!"

"Haul him up? Ha! Ha! I see myself. He's as strong as an elephant." Bu
t
Bowen and his crew had a different point of view. Theirs was a pictur
e
angle. And they made the best of it. Finally I told Peter to run close t
o
the sea lion and try to cut the leader. I held the brute as hard as I
c
ould, with a feeling something was going to break. Peter managed
,
however, to get hold of the wire, and then the hook pulled out, to th
e
chagrin of our camera men.

It occurred to me then that the incident had been unique and remarkable.

I have hooked many denizens of the deep, like dolphin, rays, devilfish
,
sawfish, octopus, and now finally a big sea lion.

"Pete, what do you know about that?" I exclaimed. "Something new!"

"Right-o, sir. I've a hunch we might hook anything in these unfishe
d
waters."

That was a thrilling thought and I heartily accepted it.

Chapter
III

At midnight the wind in the tree tops awakened me. It had a low, menacin
g
sound. I got up and went out on the bluff, and I was more than rewarded.

Beneath me the great rollers crashed to ruin on the rocks, with incessan
t
changing roar. A half-moon, low down, cast a pale light upon the sea.

Overhead Orion appeared as always, sloping to the west. And the Souther
n
Cross, that magnificent and compelling constellation, blazed with whit
e
fire, high in the heavens. Far out to sea there were gloom and mystery.

At once I grasped a difference between this scene and any other I ha
d
come upon. I sensed a far country, a country surrounded by a vast ocean
,
with something hanging over it that must have been the influence of th
e
Antarctic. Yet despite the brooding mood, the aloofness, almost
a
forbidding dark brightness, like the light which comes sometimes before
a
storm breaks at sunset, the scene was beautiful and unforgettable. And I
f
ell under its spell.

At five the next morning there was a sunrise remarkable in the extreme.

A dark mass of cloud overhung the east. Beneath it a broad band of clea
r
sky turned gradually gold, until the blazing disc of the sun tipped th
e
horizon line, and then there came a transfiguration of sea, sky, an
d
cloud. For a few moments there was a glorious light too dazzling for th
e
gaze of man. One thing a fisherman sees far more than his fellow men, an
d
that is the coming of the dawn and the breaking of the light, and th
e
bursting of the sun into its supremacy.

Here at Bermagui the early morning never fails to reward the appreciativ
e
watcher. The birds at the first gray change from the darkness--th
e
kookaburras first, with their strange, incorrigible, humorous laughter
,
wild, startling, concatenated; then the other birds, the gulls walkin
g
with dignity right into camp, and the wrens and robins and magpies. I
m
iss the bell birds and the tuis of New Zealand, than which no othe
r
birds of far countries have more intrigued me.

After several days of wind and rain and stormy sea there came a spell o
f
fine weather. It was as welcome as May flowers. It gave me a chance t
o
run out to sea, to fish hard every day, to get my bearings on thi
s
foreign shore.

I caught six Marlin swordfish between 250 and 300 pounds in weight, an
d
raised or sighted about thirty. This during a period of a week and
a
half, with only one windy day, was a very agreeable surprise, and augure
d
well for big results later. The crew of the Tin Horn accounted for thre
e
fish, two hammerheads, and one mako. Sight of this latter shar
k
satisfactorily identified this species in Australian waters.

I lost two really fine fish, the larger of which was a mako of about 600
p
ounds. I had no idea that the strike came from a mako until I hooke
d
him. Then he ran and leaped. One flashing sight of a grea
t
white-and-blue, huge-finned fish high in the air was enough to make Pete
r
and me yell wildly in unison. We rejoiced to see one of our old shar
k
friends, or enemies, at the end of my line. He fell back with a crash an
d
sent a great splash skyward. Then to further convince us of his kinshi
p
with the makos he swam up to the boat, to see what it was all about. Hi
s
coal-black eye, staring and cruel, his pointed nose, his savage underhun
g
jaw, partly open to disclose great curved fangs, his round body, poten
t
with tremendous power, his utter lack of fear of man or boat--thes
e
identified him as the mako-mako, first named by Polynesians in the Sout
h
Seas, and in New Zealand by the Maoris. The Australian name for thi
s
species is bluepointer. I have no doubt but that this provincial nam
e
will give way to the better and correct "mako."

I was holding him hard and Peter was speculating whether or not t
o
attempt to gaff him, when he cut my leader off as neatly as if he ha
d
used steel shears.

The wire sang as it flipped back to us. A Marlin leader is really no
t
good to use on mako, though I have caught many on it. I prefe
r
specially-made leaders of heavy wire and big hooks for this powerful an
d
savage-biting shark.

The other fish I lost was a striped Marlin that would have weighed mor
e
than four hundred pounds. But I never caught him to find out. Whil
e
trolling I always wear gloves. In hooking fish and fighting them I fin
d
gloves indispensable. But they get hot at times and uncomfortable. Thi
s
day I removed them for a moment--and then, of course, it happened. A bi
g
purple-banded Marlin shot up as swiftly as a meteor. He took the bait an
d
was off. I had to press both my ungloved hands down on the whizzing ree
l
of line to prevent an overrun and backlash. I burned my hands. But I
c
ould not let go to set the drag. The fish leaped into the air,
a
beautiful bronze-and-silver Marlin, barred with broad blue bands, one o
f
the largest of his kind; and with a swing of his savage head he flun
g
bait and hook back at us. That was a disappointment, of course, but as I
h
ad a fish on the stern I managed to survive the loss.