them maligned. Certainly they have petty rivalries and jealousies, but
this is not their fault. They fish all the seasons around and have been
there for years. Boatmen at Long Key and other Florida resorts--at
Tampico, Aransas Pass--are not in the same class with the Avalon men.
They want to please and to excel, and to number you among their patrons
for the future. And the boats--nowhere are there such splendid boats.
Captain Danielson's boat had utterly spoiled me for fishing out of
any other. He had it built, and the ideas of its construction were a
product of fifteen years' study. It is thirty-eight feet long, and wide,
with roomy, shaded cockpit and cabin, and comfortable revolving chairs
to fish from. These chairs have moving sockets into which you can jam
the butt of your rod; and the backs can be removed in a flash. Then you
can haul at a fish! The boat lies deep, with heavy ballast in the stern.
It has a keel all the way, and an enormous rudder. Both are constructed
so your line can slip under the boat without fouling. It is equipped
with sail and a powerful engine. Danielson can turn this boat, going at
full speed, in its own length! Consider the merit of this when a tuna
strikes, or a swordfish starts for the open sea. How many tarpon,
barracuda, amberjack, and tuna I have lost on the Atlantic seaboard just
because the boat could not be turned in time!
[Illustration: THE WILD OATS SLOPE OF CLEMENTE]
[Illustration: WHERE THE DEEP-BLUE SWELL BOOMS AGAINST THE LAVA WALL
OF CLEMENTE ISLAND]
* * * * *
Clemente Island is a mountain of cliffs and caves. It must be of
volcanic origin, and when the lava rose, hot and boiling, great
blow-holes formed, and hardened to make the caves. It is an exceedingly
beautiful island. The fishing side is on the north, or lee, shore, where
the water is very deep right off the rocks. There are kelp-beds along
the shore, and the combination of deep water, kelp, and small fish is
what holds the swordfish there in August and September. I have seen
acres of flying-fish in the air at once, and great swarms of yellowtail,
basking on the surface. The color of the water is indigo blue, clear as
crystal. Always a fascinating thing for me was to watch the water for
new and different fish, strange marine creatures, life of some kind. And
the watching was always rewarded. I have been close to schools of
devilish blackfish, and I have watched great whales play all around me.
What a spectacle to see a whale roll and dip his enormous body and bend
and sound, lifting the huge, glistening flukes of his tail, wide as a
house! I hate sharks and have caught many, both little and big. When you
are watching for swordfish it is no fun to have a big shark break for
your bait, throw the water, get your hook, and lift you from your seat.
It happened often. But sometimes when I was sure it was a shark it was
really a swordfish! I used to love to watch the sunfish leap, they are
so round and glistening and awkward. I could tell one two miles away.
The blue shark leaps often and he always turns clear over. You cannot
mistake it. Nor can you mistake a swordfish when he breaks, even though
you only see the splash. He makes two great sheets of water rise and
fall. Probably all these fish leap to shake off the remoras. A remora is
a parasite, a queer little fish, pale in color, because he probably
lives inside the gills of the fish he preys upon, with the suckers on
top of his head, arranged in a shield, ribbed like a washboard. This
little fish is as mysterious as any creature of the sea. He is as swift
as lightning. He can run over the body of a swordfish so quickly you
can scarcely follow his movement, and at all times he is fast to the
swordfish, holding with that flat sucker head. Mr. Holder wrote years
ago that the remora sticks to a fish just to be carried along, as a
means of travel, but I do not incline to this belief. We found many
remoras inside the gills of swordfish, and their presence there was
evidence of their blood-sucking tendencies. I used to search every
swordfish for these remoras, and I would keep them in a bucket till
we got to our anchorage. A school of tame rock-bass there, and tame
yellowtail, and a few great sea-bass were always waiting for us--for our
discarded bait or fish of some kind. But when I threw in a live remora,
how these hungry fish did dart away! Life in the ocean is strange,
complex, ferocious, and wonderful.
Al Shade keeps the only camp at Clemente. It is a clean, comfortable,
delightful place. I have found no place where sleep is so easy, so
sweet, so deep. Shade lives a lonely life there ten months in the year.
And it is no wonder that when a fisherman arrives Al almost kills
himself in his good humor and kindness and usefulness. Men who live
lonely lives are always glad to see their fellow-men. But he loves
Clemente Island. Who would not?
When I think of it many pictures come to mind--evening with the sea
rolling high and waves curving shoreward in great dark ripples, that
break and spread white and run up the strand. The sky is pale blue
above, a green sheen low down, with white stars blinking. The
promontories run down into the sea, sheer, black, rugged, bold, mighty.
The surf is loud and deep, detonating, and the pebbles scream as the
waves draw them down. Strange to realize that surf when on the morrow
the sea will be like glass--not a wave nor a ripple under the gray fog!
Wild and beautiful Clemente--the island of caves and canons and
cliffs--lilac and cactus and ice-plant and arbor-vitae and ironwood, with
the wild goats silhouetted dark against the bold sky-line!
* * * * *
There came that day of all days. I never believed Captain Dan, but now I
shall never forget. The greatest day that ever befell me! I brought four
swordfish to gaff and whipped another, the biggest one of the whole
trip, and saw him tear away from the hook just at the last--in all, nine
hours of strenuous hanging on to a rod.
I caught the first one before six o'clock, as the sun was rising
red-gold, dazzling, glorious. He leaped in the sun eleven times. He
weighed one hundred and eighty-seven.
After breakfast we sighted two swordfish on the smooth sea. Both charged
the bait. I hooked one of these and he leaped twenty-three times. He
weighed one hundred and sixty-eight.
Then off the east end we saw a big swordfish leap five times. We went
out toward the open sea. But we never got anywhere near him. I had three
strikes, one after another, when we were speeding the boat. Then we shut
down and took to slow trolling. I saw another swordfish sail for my
bait, and yelled. He shot off with the bait and his dorsal fin stuck out
of the water. I hooked him. He leaped thirty-eight times. How the camera
did snap during this fight! He weighed two hundred and ten.
I had a fierce strike on the way in. Too fast! We lost him.
"The sea's alive with swordfish!" cried Captain Dan. "It's the day!"
Then I awoke to my opportunity.
Round the east end, close to the great black bluff, where the swells
pile up so thunderously, I spied the biggest purple fin I had ever seen.
This fellow came to meet us--took my bait. I hooked at him, but did not
hurt or scare him. Finally I pulled the hook out of him. While I was
reeling in my line suddenly a huge purple shadow hove in sight. It was
the swordfish--and certainly one of immense size--the hugest yet.
"He's following the boat!" yelled Captain Dan, in great excitement.
So I saw, but I could not speak or yell. All was intense excitement on
that boat. I jumped up on the stern, holding the bait Captain Dan had
put on my hook. Then I paused to look. We all looked, spellbound. That
was a sight of a lifetime. There he swam, the monster, a few feet under
the surface, only a rod back of the boat. I had no calm judgment with
which to measure his dimensions. I only saw that he was tremendous and
beautiful. His great, yard-wide fins gleamed royal purple. And the
purple strips crossed his silver sides. He glowed in the water, changed
color like a chameleon, and drifted, floated after us. I thought of my
brother Reddy--how he would have gloried in that sight! I thought of
Dilg, of Bob Davis, of Professor Kellogg--other great fishermen, all in
a flash. Indeed, though I gloated over my fortune, I was not selfish.
Then I threw in the flying-fish bait. The swordfish loomed up, while my
heart ceased to beat. There, in plain sight, he took the bait, as a
trout might have taken a grasshopper. Slowly he sank. The line began to
slip off the reel. He ceased to be a bright purple mass--grew dim--then
vague--and disappeared.
I sat down, jammed the rod in the socket, and got ready. For the life of
me I could not steady my legs.
"What'll he weigh?" I gasped.
"O Lord! he looked twice as big as the big one you got," replied Dan.
"Stand by with the cameras!" I said to my companions, and as they lined
up, two on one side and one on the other, I began to strike at that fish
with all my might and main. I must have had at least twelve powerful
strikes before he began to wake up.
Then!
He came up, throwing the water in angry spouts. If he did not threaten
the boat I was crazy. He began an exhibition that dwarfed any other I
had seen, and it was so swift that I could scarcely follow him. Yet when
I saw the line rise, and then the wonderful, long, shiny body, instinct
with fury, shoot into the air, I yelled the number of the leap, and this
was the signal for the camera-workers. They held the cameras close,
without trying to focus, facing the fish, and they snapped when I
yelled. It was all gloriously exciting. I could never describe that
exhibition. I only know that he leaped clear forty-six times, and after
a swift, hard hour for me he got away. Strangely, I was almost happy
that he had shaken loose, for he had given such remarkable opportunities
for pictures.
Captain Dan threw the wheel hard over and the boat turned. The
swordfish, tired out and unconscious of freedom, was floating near the
surface, a drifting blaze of purple. The boat sheered close to him.
Captain Dan reached over with a gaff--and all but gaffed that swordfish
before he sank too deep. Captain Dan was white with disappointment. That
more than anything showed me his earnestness, what it all meant to him.
On the way in, for we had been led out a couple of miles, I saw a blue
streak after my bait, and I was ready before the swordfish got to it. He
struck viciously and I dared not let him have much line. When I hooked
him he started out to sea at a clip that smoked the line off my reel.
Captain Dan got the boat turned before the swordfish began to leap. Then
it was almost a straightaway race. This fellow was a greyhound leaper.
He did not churn the water, nor dash to and fro on the surface, but kept
steadily leaping ahead. He cleared the water thirty-nine times before he
gave up leaping. Then he sounded. The line went slack. I thought he was
gone. Suddenly he showed again, in a white splash, and he was not half
as far away as when he went down. Then I felt the pull on the line. It
was heavy, for he had left a great bag in it. I endeavored to recover
line, but it came in very slowly. The swordfish then threshed on the
surface so that we could hear the water crack. But he did not leap
again. He had gone mad with rage. He seemed to have no sense of
direction. He went down again, only to rush up, still closer to us. Then
it was plain he saw the nature of his foe. Splitting water like a swift
motor-boat, he charged us.
I had a cold sensation, but was too excited to be afraid. Almost I
forgot to reel in.
"He's after us!" I said, grimly.
Captain Dan started the boat ahead fast. The swordfish got out of line
with the boat. But he was close, and he made me think of the charging
rhinoceros Dugmore photographed. And then I yelled for the cameras to be
snapped. They all clicked--and then, when the swordfish shot close
behind us, presenting the most magnificent picture, no one was ready!
As he passed I thought I saw the line round his body. Then he sounded
and began to plug. He towed us six miles out to sea. I could not stop
him. I had begun to weaken. My hands were sights. My back hurt. But I
stayed with him. He felt like a log and I could not recover line.
Captain Dan said it was because I was almost all in, but I did not think
that. Presently this swordfish turned inshore and towed us back the six
miles. By this time it was late and I _was_ all in. But the swordfish
did not seem nearer the boat. I got mad and found some reserve strength.
I simply had to bring him to gaff. I pulled and pumped and wound until I
was blind and could scarcely feel. My old blisters opened and bled. My
left arm was dead. I seemed to have no more strength than a kitten. I
could not lead the fish nor turn him. I had to drag and drag, inch by
inch. It was agonizing. But finally I was encouraged by sight of him, a
long, fine, game fellow. A hundred times I got the end of the double
line near the leader in sight, only to lose it.
Seven o'clock passed. I had fought this swordfish nearly three hours. I
could not last much longer. I rested a little, holding hard, and then
began a last and desperate effort to bring him to gaff. I was absolutely
dripping with sweat, and red flashes passed before my eyes, and queer
dots. The last supreme pull--all I had left--brought the end of the
leader to Captain Dan's outstretched hand.
The swordfish came in broadside. In the clear water we saw him plainly,
beautifully striped tiger that he was! And we all saw that he had not
been hooked. He had been lassoed. In some way the leader had looped
around him with the hook catching under the wire. No wonder it had
nearly killed me to bring him to the boat, and surely I never would have
succeeded had it not been for the record Captain Dan coveted. That was
the strangest feature in all my wonderful Clemente experience--to see
that superb swordfish looped in a noose of my long leader. He was
without a scratch. It may serve to give some faint idea of the
bewildering possibilities in the pursuit of this royal purple game of
the Pacific.
IV
TWO FIGHTS WITH SWORDFISH
My first day at Avalon, 1916, was one likely to be memorable among my
fishing experiences.
The weather (August 2d) was delightful--smooth, rippling sea, no wind,
clear sky and warm. The Sierra Nevada Mountains shone dark above the
horizon.
A little before noon we passed my friend Lone Angler, who hailed us and
said there was a big broadbill swordfish off in the steamer-course. We
steered off in that direction.
There were sunfish and sharks showing all around. Once I saw a whale.
The sea was glassy, with a long, heaving swell. Birds were plentiful in
scattered groups.
We ran across a shark of small size and tried to get him to take a bait.
He refused. A little later Captain Dan espied a fin, and upon running up
we discovered the huge, brown, leathery tail and dorsal of a broadbill
swordfish.
Captain Dan advised a long line out so that we could circle the fish
from a distance and not scare him. I do not remember any unusual
excitement. I was curious and interested. Remembering all I had heard
about these fish, I did not anticipate getting a strike from him.
We circled him and drew the flying-fish bait so that he would swim near
it. As it was, I had to reel in some. Presently we had the bait some
twenty yards ahead of him. Then Captain Dan slowed down. The broadbill
wiggled his tail and slid out of sight. Dan said he was going for my
bait. But I did not believe so. Several moments passed. I had given up
any little hope I might have had when I received a quick, strong,
vibrating strike--different from any I had ever experienced. I suppose
the strangeness was due to the shock he gave my line when he struck the
bait with his sword. The line paid out unsteadily and slowly. I looked
at Dan and he looked at me. Neither of us was excited nor particularly
elated. I guess I did not realize what was actually going on.
I let him have about one hundred and fifty feet of line.
When I sat down to jam the rod-butt in the socket I had awakened to
possibilities. Throwing on the drag and winding in until my line was
taut, I struck hard--four times. He made impossible any more attempts at
this by starting off on a heavy, irresistible rush. But he was not fast,
or so it seemed to me. He did not get more than four hundred feet of
line before we ran up on him. Presently he came to the surface to thresh
around. He did not appear scared or angry. Probably he was annoyed at
the pricking of the hook. But he kept moving, sometimes on the surface
and sometimes beneath. I did not fight him hard, preferring to let him
pull out the line, and then when he rested I worked on him to recover
it. My idea was to keep a perpetual strain upon him.
I do not think I had even a hope of bringing this fish to the boat.
It was twelve o'clock exactly when I hooked him, and a quarter of an
hour sped by. My first big thrill came when he leaped. This was a
surprise. He was fooling round, and then, all of a sudden, he broke
water clear. It was an awkward, ponderous action, and looked as if he
had come up backward, like a bucking bronco. His size and his long,
sinister sword amazed me and frightened me. It gave me a cold sensation
to realize I was hooked to a huge, dangerous fish. But that in itself
was a new kind of thrill. No boatman fears a Marlin as he does the true
broadbill swordfish.
My second thrill came when the fish lunged on the surface in a red foam.
If I had hooked him so he bled freely there was a chance to land him!
This approach to encouragement, however, was short-lived. He went down,
and if I had been hooked to a submarine I could scarcely have felt more
helpless. He sounded about five hundred feet and then sulked. I had the
pleasant task of pumping him up. This brought the sweat out upon me and
loosened me up. I began to fight him harder. And it seemed that as I
increased the strain he grew stronger and a little more active. Still
there was not any difference in his tactics. I began to get a conception
of the vitality and endurance of a broadbill in contrast with the speed
and savageness of his brother fish, the Marlin, or roundbill.
At two o'clock matters were about the same. I was not tired, but
certainly the fish was not tired, either. He came to the surface just
about as much as he sounded. I had no difficulty at all in getting back
the line he took, at least all save a hundred feet or so. When I tried
to lead him or lift him--then I got his point of view. He would not
budge an inch. There seemed nothing to do but let him work on the drag,
and when he had pulled out a few hundred feet of line we ran up on him
and I reeled in the line. Now and then I put all the strain I could on
the rod and worked him that way.
At three o'clock I began to get tired. My hands hurt. And I concluded I
had been rather unlucky to start on a broadbill at the very beginning.
From that time he showed less frequently, and, if anything, he grew
slower and heavier. I felt no more rushes. And along about this time I
found I could lead him somewhat. This made me begin to work hard. Yet,
notwithstanding, I had no hope of capturing the fish. It was only
experience.
Captain Dan kept saying: "Well, you wanted to hook up with a broadbill!
Now how do you like it?" He had no idea I would ever land him. Several
times I asked him to give an opinion as to the size of the swordfish,
but he would not venture that until he had gotten a good close view of
him.
At four o'clock I made the alarming discovery that the great B-Ocean
reel was freezing, just as my other one had frozen on my first swordfish
the year previous. Captain Dan used language. He threw up his hands. He
gave up. But I did not.
"Dan, see here," I said. "We'll run up on him, throw off a lot of slack
line, then cut it and tie it to another reel!"
"We might do that. But it'll disqualify the fish," he replied.
Captain Dan, like all the boatmen at Avalon, has fixed ideas about the
Tuna Club and its records and requirements. It is all right, I suppose,
for a club to have rules, and not count or credit an angler who breaks a
rod or is driven to the expedient I had proposed. But I do not fish for
clubs or records. I fish for the fun, the excitement, the thrill of the
game, and I would rather let my fish go than not. So I said:
"We'll certainly lose the fish if we don't change reels. I am using the
regulation tackle, and to my mind the more tackle we use, provided we
land the fish, the more credit is due us. It is not an easy matter to
change reels or lines or rods with a big fish working all the time."
Captain Dan acquiesced, but told me to try fighting him a while with the
light drag and the thumb-brake. So far only the heavy drag had frozen. I
tried Dan's idea, to my exceeding discomfort; and the result was that
the swordfish drew far away from us. Presently the reel froze solid. The
handle would not turn. But with the drag off the spool ran free.
Then we ran away from the fish, circling and letting out slack line.
When we came to the end of the line we turned back a little, and with a
big slack we took the risk of cutting the line and tying it on the other
reel. We had just got this done when the line straightened tight! I
wound in about twelve hundred feet of line and was tired and wet when I
had gotten in all I could pull. This brought us to within a couple of
hundred feet of our quarry. Also it brought us to five o'clock. Five
hours!... I began to have queer sensations--aches, pains, tremblings,
saggings. Likewise misgivings!
About this period I determined to see how close to the boat I could pull
him. I worked. The word "worked" is not readily understood until a man
has tried to pull a big broadbill close to the boat. I pulled until I
saw stars and my bones cracked. Then there was another crack. The rod
broke at the reel seat! And the reel seat was bent. Fortunately the line
could still pay out. And I held the tip while Dan pried and hammered the
reel off the broken butt on to another one. Then he put the tip in that
butt, and once more I had to reel in what seemed miles and miles of
line.
Five thirty! It seemed around the end of the world for me. We had
drifted into a tide-rip about five miles east of Avalon, and in this
rough water I had a terrible time trying to hold my fish. When I
discovered that I could hold him--and therefore that he was playing
out--then there burst upon me the dazzling hope of actually bringing him
to gaff. It is something to fight a fish for more than five hours
without one single hope of his capture. I had done that. And now,
suddenly, to be fired with hope gave me new strength and spirit to work.
The pain in my hands was excruciating. I was burning all over; wet and
slippery, and aching in every muscle. These next few minutes seemed
longer than all the hours. I found that to put the old strain on the
rod made me blind with pain. There was no fun, no excitement, no thrill
now. As I labored I could not help marveling at the strange, imbecile
pursuits of mankind. Here I was in an agony, absolutely useless. Why did
I keep it up? I could not give up, and I concluded I was crazy.
I conceived the most unreasonable hatred for that poor swordfish that
had done nothing to me and that certainly would have been justified in
ramming the boat.
To my despair the fish sounded deep, going down and down. Captain Dan
watched the line. Finally it ceased to pay out.
"Pump him up!" said Dan.
This was funny. It was about as funny as death.
I rested awhile and meditated upon the weakness of the flesh. The thing
most desirable and beautiful in all the universe was rest. It was so
sweet to think of that I was hard put to it to keep from tossing the rod
overboard. There was something so desperately trying and painful in this
fight with a broadbill. At last I drew a deep, long breath, and, with a
pang in my breast and little stings all over me, I began to lift on him.
He was at the bottom of the ocean. He was just as unattainable as the
bottom of the ocean. But there are ethics of a sportsman!
Inch by inch and foot by foot I pumped up this live and dragging weight.
I sweat, I panted, I whistled, I bled--and my arms were dead, and my
hands raw and my heart seemed about to burst.
Suddenly Captain Dan electrified me.
"There's the end of the double line!" he yelled.
Unbelievable as it was, there the knot in the end of the short six feet
of double line showed at the surface. I pumped and I reeled inch by
inch.
A long dark object showed indistinctly, wavered as the swells rose, then
showed again. As I strained at the rod so I strained my eyes.
"I see the leader!" yelled Dan, in great excitement.
I saw it, too, and I spent the last ounce of strength left in me. Up and
up came the long, dark, vague object.
"You've got him licked!" exclaimed Dan. "Not a wag left in him!"
It did seem so. And that bewildering instant saw the birth of assurance
in me. I was going to get him! That was a grand instant for a fisherman.
I could have lifted anything then.
The swordfish became clear to my gaze. He was a devilish-looking
monster, two feet thick across the back, twelve feet long over all, and
he would have weighed at the least over four hundred pounds. And I had
beaten him! That was there to be seen. He had none of the beauty and
color of the roundbill swordfish. He was dark, almost black, with huge
dorsal and tail, and a wicked broad sword fully four feet long. What
terrified me was his enormous size and the deadly look of him. I
expected to see him rush at the boat.
Watching him thus, I reveled in my wonderful luck. Up to this date there
had been only three of these rare fish caught in twenty-five years of
Avalon fishing. And this one was far larger than those that had been
taken.
"Lift him! Closer!" called Captain Dan. "In two minutes I'll have a gaff
in him!"
I made a last effort. Dan reached for the leader.
Then the hook tore out.
My swordfish, without a movement of tail or fin, slowly sank--to vanish
in the blue water.