American Angler in Australia (1937) Read Online Free PDF

day off Bermagui was really the mos t thrilling and profitable to Australia, as well as to me.
    This was an unusually beautiful day for any sea. The morning was sunny , warm, and still. There seemed to be the balminess of spring in the air.
    We got an early start, a little after sunrise, with the idea of runnin g far offshore--"out wide," the market fishermen call it--into th e equatorial stream.
    I had been out in this current several times off Montague Island, but no t very far, and not to study it particularly. The camera crew came on th e Avalon with me, owing to their boat being in need of engine repairs.
    Bait was easy to catch and quite abundant, which fact always lends a n auspicious start to a fish day. The boys yelled in competition a s they hauled in the yellowtail (king fish), bonito, and salmon.
    Shearwater ducks were wheeling over the schools of bait, and th e gannets were making their magnificent dives from aloft. A gannet , by the way, is the grandest of all sea-fowl divers.
    Mr. Rogers had been among the Marlin the day before, fifteen mile s northeast of Montague, and Mr. Lynn had also been among them twenty mile s directly east of Bermagui. Our plan was to locate one or other of them , and find the fish. As a matter of fact, we ran seventy miles that day an d could not even get sight of them. But we found the fish and they did not.
    This lent additional substantiation to my theory that in a fast-movin g clean current, fish will never be found in the same place the next day.
    It is useless to take marks on the mountains for the purpose of locatin g a place out at sea where the fish were found today, because they go wit h the current and the bait. In deep water, say two hundred and twenty-fiv e fathoms off Bermagui, the bottom has no influence whatever on the fish.
    In shallow water the bottom has really great influence.
    We ran thirty miles by noon. No fish sign of any kind--no birds or bai t or splashes or fins--just one vast heaving waste of lonely sea, like a shimmering opal.
    After lunch I told the outfit that I guessed it was up to me to find som e kind of fish, so I climbed forward and stood at the mast to scan the sea.
    This was an old familiar, thrilling custom of mine, and had been learne d over many years roaming the sea for signs of tuna or broadbill swordfish.
    In the former case you see splashes or dark patches on the glassy sea; i n the latter you see the great sickle fins of that old gladiator Xiphia s gladius, surely the most wonderful spectacle for a sea angler.
    In this case, however, all I sighted was a hammerhead shark. His shar p oval fin looked pretty large, and as his acquisition might tend to goo d fortune, I decided to drop him a bait and incidentally show my camer a crew, who had been complaining of hard battles with sharks, how easy i t could be done.
    Using a leader with a small hook, I had the boatman put on a small piec e of bait, and crossed the track of the hammerhead with it. When he struc k the scent in the water he went wild, and came rushing up the wake, hi s big black fin weaving to and fro, until he struck. Hammerheads hav e rather small mouths, but they are easily hooked by this method. In a couple of minutes I had hold of this fellow.
    After hooking him I was careful not to pull hard on him. That is th e secret of my method with sharks, of which I have caught a thousand. The y are all alike. They hate the pull of a line and will react violently , according to what pressure is brought to bear. If they are not "horsed," a s the saying goes, they can be led up to the boat to the gaff. Thi s means a lot of strenuous exercise for the boatmen, but only adds t o the fun. Shooting, as is employed here in Australia, and harpooning , as done in New Zealand, disqualify a fish.
    I had this hammerhead up to the boat in twelve minutes, and I neve r heaved hard on him once. Emil, my still photographer, a big stron g fellow, had had a three-hour battle with one a little smaller, and h e