* * * * *

After resting my blistered hands for three days, which time was scarcely

long enough to heal them, I could not resist the call of the sea.

We went off Seal Rocks and trolled about five miles out. We met a

sand-dabber who said he had seen a big broadbill back a ways. So we

turned round. After a while I saw a big, vicious splash half a mile

east, and we made for it. Then I soon espied the fish.

We worked around him awhile, but he would not take a barracuda or a

flying-fish.

It was hard to keep track of him, on account of rough water. Soon he

went down.

Then a little later I saw what Dan called a Marlin. He had big flippers,

wide apart. I took him for a broadbill.

We circled him, and before he saw a bait he leaped twice, coming about

half out, with belly toward us. He looked huge, but just how big it was

impossible to say.

After a while he came up, and we circled him. As the bait drifted round

before him--twenty yards or more off--he gave that little wiggle of the

tail sickle, and went under. I waited. I had given up hope when I felt

him hit the bait. Then he ran off, pretty fast. I let him have a long

line. Then I sat down and struck him. He surged off, and we all got

ready to watch him leap. But he did not show.

He swam off, sounded, came up, rolled around, went down again. But we

did not get a look at him. He fought like any other heavy swordfish.

In one and one-half hours I pulled him close to the boat, and we all saw

him. But I did not get a good look at him as he wove to and fro behind

the boat.

Then he sounded.

I began to work on him, and worked harder. He seemed to get stronger all

the time.

"He feels like a broadbill, I tell you," I said to Captain Dan.

Dan shook his head, yet all the same he looked dubious.

Then began a slow, persistent, hard battle between me and the fish, the

severity of which I did not realize at the time. In hours like those

time has wings. My hands grew hot. They itched, and I wanted to remove

the wet gloves. But I did not, and sought to keep my mind off what had

been half-healed blisters. Neither the fish nor I made any new moves, it

all being plug on his part and give and take on mine. Slowly and

doggedly he worked out toward the sea, and while the hours passed, just

as persistently he circled back.

Captain Dan came to stand beside me, earnestly watching the rod bend and

the line stretch. He shook his head.

"That's a big Marlin and you've got him foul-hooked," he asserted. This

statement was made at the end of three hours and more. I did not agree.

Dan and I often had arguments. He always tackled me when I was in some

such situation as this--for then, of course, he had the best of it. My

brother Rome was in the boat that day, an intensely interested observer.

He had not as yet hooked a swordfish.

"It's a German submarine!" he declared.

My brother's wife and the other ladies with us on board were inclined to

favor my side; at least they were sorry for the fish and said he must be

very big.

"Dan, I could tell a foul-hooked fish," I asserted, positively. "This

fellow is too alive--too limber. He doesn't sag like a dead weight."

"Well, if he's not foul-hooked, then you're all in," replied the

captain.

Cheerful acquiescence is a desirable trait in any one, especially an

angler who aspires to things, but that was left out in the ordering of

my complex disposition. However, to get angry makes a man fight harder,

and so it was with me.

At the end of five hours Dan suggested putting the harness on me. This

contrivance, by the way, is a thing of straps and buckles, and its use

is to fit over an angler's shoulders and to snap on the rod. It helps

him lift the fish, puts his shoulders more into play, rests his arms.

But I had never worn one. I was afraid of it.

"Suppose he pulls me overboard, with that on!" I exclaimed. "He'll drown

me!"

"We'll hold on to you," replied Dan, cheerily, as he strapped it around

me.

Later it turned out that I had exactly the right view concerning this

harness, for Dustin Farnum was nearly pulled overboard and--But I have

not space for that story here. My brother Rome wants to write that

story, anyhow, because it is so funny, he says.

On the other hand, the fact soon manifested itself to me that I could

lift a great deal more with said harness to help. The big fish began to

come nearer and also he began to get mad. Here I forgot the pain in my

hands. I grew enthusiastic. And foolishly I bragged. Then I lifted so

hard that I cracked the great Conroy rod.

Dan threw up his hands. He quit, same as he quit the first day out, when

I hooked the broadbill and the reel froze.

"Disqualified fish, even if you ketch him--which you won't," he said,

dejectedly.

"Crack goes thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed my brother. "Sure is funny,

brother, how you can decimate good money into the general atmosphere!"

If there really is anything fine in the fighting of a big fish, which

theory I have begun to doubt, certainly Captain Dan and Brother R. C.

did not know it.

Remarks were forthcoming from me, I am ashamed to state, that should not

have been. Then I got Dan to tie splints on the rod, after which I

fought my quarry some more. The splints broke. Dan had to bind the

cracked rod with heavy pieces of wood and they added considerable weight

to what had before felt like a ton.

The fish had been hooked at eleven o'clock and it was now five. We had

drifted or been pulled into the main channel, where strong currents and

a choppy sea made the matter a pretty serious and uncomfortable one.

Here I expended all I had left in a short and furious struggle to bring

the fish up, if not to gaff, at least so we could see what he looked

like. How strange and unfathomable a feeling this mystery of him gave

rise to! If I could only see him once, then he could get away and

welcome. Captain Dan, in anticipation of a need of much elbow room in

that cockpit, ordered my brother and the ladies to go into the cabin or

up on top. And they all scrambled up and lay flat on the deck-roof, with

their heads over, watching me. They had to hold on some, too. In fact,

they were having the time of their lives.

My supreme effort brought the fish within the hundredth foot length of

line--then my hands and my back refused any more.

"Dan, here's the great chance you've always hankered for!" I said. "Now

let's see you pull him right in!"

And I passed him the rod and got up. Dan took it with the pleased

expression of a child suddenly and wonderfully come into possession of a

long-unattainable toy. Captain Dan was going to pull that fish right up

to the boat. He was! Now Dan is big--he weighs two hundred; he has arms

and hands like the limbs of a Vulcan. Perhaps Dan had every reason to

believe he would pull the fish right up to the boat. But somehow I knew

that he would not.

My fish, perhaps feeling a new and different and mightier hand at the

rod, showed how he liked it by a magnificent rush--the greatest of the

whole fight--and he took about five hundred feet of line.

Dan's expression changed as if by magic.

"Steer the boat! Port! Port!" he yelled.

Probably I could not run a boat right with perfectly fresh and well

hands, and with my lacerated and stinging ones I surely made a mess of

it. This brought language from my boatman--well, to say the least, quite

disrespectable. Fortunately, however, I got the boat around and we ran

down on the fish. Dan, working with long, powerful sweeps of the rod,

got the line back and the fish close. The game began to look great to

me. All along I had guessed this fish to be a wonder; and now I knew it.

Hauling him close that way angered him. He made another rush, long and

savage. The line smoked off that reel. Dan's expression was one of

utmost gratification to me. A boatman at last cornered--tied up to a

whale of a fish!

Somewhere out there a couple of hundred yards the big fish came up and

roared on the surface. I saw only circling wake and waves like those

behind a speedy motor-boat. But Dan let out a strange shout, and up

above the girls screamed, and brother Rome yelled murder or something. I

gathered that he had a camera.

"Steady up there!" I called out. "If you fall overboard it's good

night!... For we want this fish!"

I had all I could do. Dan would order me to steer this way and that--to

throw out the clutch--to throw it in. Still I was able to keep track of

events. This fish made nineteen rushes in the succeeding half-hour.

Never for an instant did Captain Dan let up. Assuredly during that time

he spent more force on the fish than I had in six hours.

The sea was bad, the boat was rolling, the cockpit was inches deep under

water many a time. I was hard put to it to stay at my post; and what

saved the watchers above could not be explained by me.

"Mebbe I can hold him now--a little," called Dan once, as he got the

hundred-foot mark over the reel. "Strap the harness on me!"

I fastened the straps round Dan's broad shoulders. His shirt was as wet

as if he had fallen overboard. Maybe some of that wet was spray. His

face was purple, his big arms bulging, and he whistled as he breathed.

"Good-by, Dan. This will be a fitting end for a boatman," I said,

cheerfully, as I dove back to the wheel.

At six o'clock our fish was going strong and Dan was tiring fast. He

had, of course, worked too desperately hard.

Meanwhile the sun sank and the sea went down. All the west was gold and

red, with the towers of Church Rock spiring the horizon. A flock of

gulls were circling low, perhaps over a school of tuna. The white

cottages of Avalon looked mere specks on the dark island.

Captain Dan had the swordfish within a hundred feet of the boat and was

able to hold him. This seemed hopeful. It looked now just a matter of a

little more time. But Dan needed a rest.

I suggested that my brother come down and take a hand in the final

round, which I frankly confessed was liable to be hell.

[Illustration: FOUR MARLIN SWORDFISH IN ONE DAY]

[Illustration: A BIG SAILFISH BREAKING WATER]

"Not on your life!" was the prompt reply. "I want to begin on a _little_

swordfish!... Why, that--that fish hasn't waked up yet!"

And I was bound to confess there seemed to me to be a good deal of sense

in what he said.

"Dan, I'll take the rod--rest you a bit--so you can finish him," I

offered.

The half-hour Dan recorded as my further work on this fish will always

be a dark and poignant blank in my fishing experience. When it was over

twilight had come and the fish was rolling and circling perhaps fifty

yards from the boat.

Here Dan took the rod again, and with the harness on and fresh gloves

went at the fish in grim determination.

Suddenly the moon sailed out from behind a fog-bank and the sea was

transformed. It was as beautiful as it was lucky for us.

By Herculean effort Dan brought the swordfish close. If any angler

doubts the strength of a twenty-four thread line his experience is still

young. That line was a rope, yet it sang like a banjo string.

Leaning over the side, with two pairs of gloves on, I caught the double

line, and as I pulled and Dan reeled the fish came up nearer. But I

could not see him. Then I reached the leader and held on as for dear

life.

"I've got the leader!" I yelled. "Hurry, Dan!"

Dan dropped the rod and reached for his gaff. But he had neglected to

unhook the rod from the harness, and as the fish lunged and tore the

leader away from me there came near to being disaster. However, Dan got

straightened out and anchored in the chair and began to haul away again.

It appeared we had the fish almost done, but he was so big that a mere

movement of his tail irresistibly drew out the line.

Then the tip of the rod broke off short just even with the splints and

it slid down the line out of sight. Dan lowered the rod so most of the

strain would come on the reel, and now he held like grim death.

"Dan, if we don't make any more mistakes we'll get that fish!" I

declared.

The sea was almost calm now, and moon-blanched so that we could plainly

see the line. Despite Dan's efforts, the swordfish slowly ran off a

hundred feet more of line. Dan groaned. But I yelled with sheer

exultation. For, standing up on the gunwale, I saw the swordfish. He had

come up. He was phosphorescent--a long gleam of silver--and he rolled in

the unmistakable manner of a fish nearly beaten.

Suddenly he headed for the boat. It was a strange motion. I was

surprised--then frightened. Dan reeled in rapidly. The streak of white

gleamed closer and closer. It was like white fire--a long, savage,

pointed shape.

"Look! Look!" I yelled to those above. "Don't miss it!... Oh, great!"

"He's charging the boat!" hoarsely shouted Dan.

"He's all in!" yelled my brother.

I jumped into the cockpit and leaned over the gunwale beside the rod.

Then I grasped the line, letting it slip through my hands. Dan wound in

with fierce energy. I felt the end of the double line go by me, and at

this I let out another shout to warn Dan. Then I had the end of the

leader--a good strong grip--and, looking down, I saw the clear silver

outline of the hugest fish I had ever seen short of shark or whale. He

made a beautiful, wild, frightful sight. He rolled on his back.

Roundbill or broadbill, he had an enormous length of sword.

"Come, Dan--we've got him!" I panted.

Dan could not, dare not get up then.

The situation was perilous. I saw how Dan clutched the reel, with his

big thumbs biting into the line. I did my best. My sight failed me for

an instant. But the fish pulled the leader through my hands. My brother

leaped down to help--alas, too late!

"Let go, Dan! Give him line!"

But Dan was past that. Afterward he said his grip was locked. He held,

and not another foot did the swordfish get. Again I leaned over the

gunwale. I saw him--a monster--pale, wavering. His tail had an

enormous spread. I could no longer see his sword. Almost he was ready to

give up.

Then the double line snapped. I fell back in the boat and Dan fell back

in the chair.

Nine hours!

V

SAILFISH--THE ATLANTIC BROTHER TO THE PACIFIC SWORDFISH

In the winter of 1916 I persuaded Captain Sam Johnson, otherwise famous

as Horse-mackerel Sam, of Seabright, New Jersey, to go to Long Key with

me and see if the two of us as a team could not outwit those illusive

and strange sailfish of the Gulf Stream.

Sam and I have had many adventures going down to sea. At Seabright we

used to launch a Seabright skiff in the gray gloom of early morning and

shoot the surf, and return shoreward in the afternoon to ride a great

swell clear till it broke on the sand. When I think of Sam I think of

tuna--those torpedoes of the ocean. I have caught many tuna with Sam,

and hooked big ones, but these giants are still roving the blue deeps.

Once I hooked a tuna off Sandy Hook, out in the channel, and as I was

playing him the _Lusitania_ bore down the channel. Like a mountain she

loomed over us. I felt like an atom looking up and up. Passengers waved

down to us as the tuna bent my rod. The great ship passed on in a

seething roar--passed on to her tragic fate. We rode the heavy swells

she lifted--and my tuna got away.

Sam Johnson is from Norway. His ancestors lived by fishing. Sam knows

and loves the sea. He has been a sailor before the mast, but he is more

fisherman than sailor. He is a stalwart man, with an iron, stern,

weather-beaten face and keen blue eyes, and he has an arm like the

branch of an oak. For many years he has been a market fisherman at

Seabright, where on off days he pursued the horse-mackerel for the fun

of it, and which earned him his name. Better than any man I ever met Sam

knows the sea; he knows fish, he knows boats and engines. And I have

reached a time in my experience of fishing where I want that kind of a

boatman.

* * * * *

Sam and I went after sailfish at Long Key and we got them. But I do not

consider the experience conclusive. If it had not been for my

hard-earned knowledge of the Pacific swordfish, and for Sam's keenness

on the sea, we would not have been so fortunate. We established the

record, but, what is more important, we showed what magnificent sport is

possible. This advent added much to the attractiveness of Long Key for

me. And Long Key was attractive enough before.

Sailfish had been caught occasionally at Long Key, during every season.

But I am inclined to believe that, in most instances, the capture of

sailfish had been accident--mere fisherman's luck. Anglers have fished

along the reef and inside, trolling with heavy tackle for anything that

might strike, and once in a while a sailfish has somehow hooked himself.

Mr. Schutt tells of hooking one on a Wilson spoon, and I know of another

angler who had this happen. I know of one gentleman who told me he

hooked a fish that he supposed was a barracuda, and while he was

fighting this supposed barracuda he was interested in the leaping of a

sailfish near his boat. His boatman importuned him to hurry in the

barracuda so there would be a chance to go after the leaping sailfish.

But it turned out that the sailfish was on his hook. Another angler went

out with heavy rod, the great B-Ocean reel, and two big hooks (which is

an outfit suitable only for large tuna or swordfish), and this fellow

hooked a sailfish which had no chance and was dead in less than ten

minutes. A party of anglers were out on the reef, fishing for anything,

and they decided to take a turn outside where I had been spending days

after sailfish. Scarcely had these men left the reef when five sailfish

loomed up and all of them, with that perversity and capriciousness which

makes fish so incomprehensible, tried to climb on board the boat. One, a

heavy fish, did succeed in hooking himself and getting aboard. I could

multiply events of this nature, but this is enough to illustrate my

point--that there is a vast difference between several fishermen out of

thousands bringing in several sailfish in one season and one fisherman

deliberately going after sailfish with light tackle and eventually

getting them.

It is not easy. On the contrary, it is extremely hard. It takes infinite

patience, and very much has to be learned that can be learned only by

experience. But it is magnificent sport and worth any effort. It makes

tarpon-fishing tame by comparison. Tarpon-fishing is easy. Anybody can

catch a tarpon by going after him. But not every fisherman can catch a

sailfish. One fisherman out of a hundred will get his sailfish, but only

one out of a thousand will experience the wonder and thrill and beauty

of the sport.

Sailfishing is really swordfishing, and herein lies the secret of my

success at Long Key. I am not satisfied that the sailfish I caught were

all Marlin and brothers to the Pacific Marlin. The Atlantic fish are

very much smaller than those of the Pacific, and are differently marked

and built. Yet they are near enough alike to be brothers.

There are three species that I know of in southern waters. The

_Histiophorus_, the sailfish about which I am writing and of which

descriptions follow. There is another species, _Tetrapturus albidus_,

that is not uncommon in the Gulf Stream. It is my impression that this

species is larger. The Indians, with whom I fished in the Caribbean,

tell of a great swordfish--in Spanish the _Aguja de casta_, and this

species must be related to _Xiphias_, the magnificent flatbilled

swordfish of the Atlantic and Pacific.

* * * * *

The morning of my greatest day with sailfish I was out in the Gulf

Stream, seven miles offshore, before the other fishermen had gotten out

of bed. We saw the sun rise ruddy and bright out of the eastern sea, and

we saw sailfish leap as if to welcome the rising of the lord of day. A

dark, glancing ripple wavered over the water; there was just enough

swell to make seeing fish easy.

I was using a rod that weighed nine ounces over all, and twelve hundred

feet of fifteen-thread line. I was not satisfied then that the regular

light outfit of the Tuna Club, such as I used at Avalon, would do for

sailfish. No. 9 breaks of its own weight. And I have had a sailfish run

off three hundred yards of line and jump all the time he was doing it.

Besides, nobody knows how large these sailfish grow. I had hold of one

that would certainly have broken my line if he had not thrown the hook.

On this memorable day I had scarcely trolled half a mile out into the

Stream before I felt that inexplicable rap at my bait which swordfish

and sailfish make with their bills. I jumped up and got ready. I saw a

long bronze shape back of my bait. Then I saw and felt him take hold. He

certainly did not encounter the slightest resistance in running out my

line. He swam off slowly. I never had Sam throw out the clutch and stop

the boat until after I had hooked the fish. I wanted the boat to keep

moving, so if I did get a chance to strike at a fish it would be with a

tight line. These sailfish are wary and this procedure is difficult. If

the fish had run off swiftly I would have struck sooner. Everything

depends on how he takes the bait. This fellow took fifty feet of line

before I hooked him.

He came up at once, and with two-thirds of his body out of the water he

began to skitter toward us. He looked silver and bronze in the morning

light. There was excitement on board. Sam threw out the clutch. My

companions dove for the cameras, and we all yelled. The sailfish came

skittering toward us. It was a spectacular and thrilling sight. He was

not powerful enough to rise clear on his tail and do the famous trick of

the Pacific swordfish--"walking on the water." But he gave a mighty

good imitation. Then before the cameras got in a snap he went down. And

he ran, to come up far astern and begin to leap. I threw off the drag

and yelled, "Go!"

[Illustration: FOUR SAILFISH IN ONE DAY ON LIGHT TACKLE]

[Illustration: Photo by Wunstorf

SAILFISH THRESHING ON THE SURFACE]

This was pleasant for Sam, who kept repeating, "Look at him yump!"

The sailfish evidently wanted to pose for pictures, for he gave a

wonderful exhibition of high and lofty tumbling, with the result, of

course, that he quickly exhausted himself. Then came a short period

during which he sounded and I slowly worked him closer. Presently he

swam toward the boat--the old swordfish trick. I never liked it, but

with the sailfish I at least was not nervous about him attacking the

boat. Let me add here that this freedom from dread--which is never

absent during the fighting of a big swordfish--is one of the features so

attractive in sailfishing. Besides, fish that have been hooked for any

length of time, if they are going to shake or break loose, always do so

near the boat. We moved away from this fellow, and presently he came up

again, and leaped three more times clear, making nineteen leaps in all.

That about finished his performance, so regretfully I led him alongside;

and Sam, who had profited by our other days of landing sailfish, took

him cautiously by the sword, and then by the gills, and slid him into

the boat.

Sailfish are never alike, except in general outline. This one was silver

and bronze, with green bars, rather faint, and a dark-blue sail without

any spots. He measured seven feet one inch. But we measured his quality

by his leaps and nineteen gave him the record for us so far.

We stowed him up in the bow and got under way again, and scarcely had I

let my bait far enough astern when a sailfish hit it. In fact, he rushed

it. Quick as I was, which was as quick as a flash, I was not quick

enough for that fish. He felt the hook and he went away. But he had been

there long enough to get my bait.

Just then Sam pointed. I saw a sailfish break water a hundred yards

away.

"Look at him yump!" repeated Sam, every time the fish came out, which,

to be exact, was five times.

"We'll go over and pick him up," I said.

Sam and I always argue a little about the exact spot where a fish has

broken water. I never missed it far, but Sam seldom missed it at all. He

could tell by a slight foam always left by the break. We had two baits

out, as one or another of my companions always holds a rod. The more

baits out the better! We had two vicious, smashing strikes at the same

time. The fish on the other rod let go just as I hooked mine.

He came up beautifully, throwing the spray, glinting in the sun, an

angry fish with sail spread and his fins going. Then on the boat was the

same old thrilling bustle and excitement and hilarity I knew so well and

which always pleased me so much. This sailfish was a jumper.

"Look at him yump!" exclaimed Sam, with as much glee as if he had not

seen it before.