Chapter 15

Water deluged the boat, but missed me. I actually smelled that fish, he was so close. What must surely have been terror for me, had I actually seen and realized the peril, gave place to flashing thought of the one and great chance for a wonderful picture of a big swordfish close to the boat. That gripped me. While I changed the focus on my camera I missed seeing the next two jumps. But I heard the heavy sousing splashes and the yells of Dan and R. C., with the shrill screams of the ladies.

When I did look up to try to photograph the next leap of the swordfish I saw him, close at hand, monstrous and animated, in a surging, up-sweeping splash. I heard the hiss of the boiling foam. He lunged away, churning the water like a sudden whirl of a ferryboat wheel, and then he turned squarely at us. Even then Captain Dan's yell did not warn us. I felt rather than saw that he had put on full speed ahead. The swordfish dove toward us, went under, came up in a two-sheeted white splash, and rose high and higher, to fall with a cracking sound. Like a flash of light he shot up again, and began wagging his huge purple-barred body, lifting himself still higher, until all but his tail stood ponderously above the surface; and then, incredibly powerful, he wagged and lashed upright in a sea of hissing foam, mouth open wide, blood streaming down his wet sides and flying in red spray from his slapping gills--a wonderful and hair-raising spectacle. He stayed up only what seemed a moment. During this action and when he began again to leap and smash toward us, I snapped my camera three times upon him. But I missed seeing some of his greatest leaps because I had to look at the camera while operating it.

"Get back!" yelled Dan, hoarsely.

I was so excited I did not see the danger of the swordfish coming aboard. But Captain Dan did. He swept the girls back into the cabin doorway, and pushed Mrs. R. C. into a back corner of the cockpit. Strange it seemed to me how pale Dan was!

The swordfish made long, swift leaps right at the boat. On the last he hit us on the stern, but too low to come aboard. Six feet closer to us would have landed that huge, maddened swordfish right in the cockpit! But he thumped back, and the roar of his mighty tail on the water so close suddenly appalled me. I seemed to grasp how near he had come aboard at the same instant that I associated the power of his tail with a havoc he would have executed in the boat. It flashed over me that he would weigh far over three hundred.

When he thumped back the water rose in a sounding splash, deluging us and leaving six inches in the cockpit. He sheered off astern, sliding over the water in two streaks of white running spray, and then up he rose again in a magnificent wild leap. He appeared maddened with pain and fright and instinct to preserve his life.

Again the fish turned right at us. This instant was the most terrifying. Not a word from R. C.! But out of the tail of my eye I saw him crouch, ready to leap. He grimly held on to his rod, but there had not been a tight line on it since he struck the fish.

Yelling warningly, Captain Dan threw the wheel hard over. But that seemed of no use. We could not lose the swordfish.

He made two dives into the air, and the next one missed us by a yard, and showed his great, glistening, striped body, thick as a barrel, and curved with terrible speed and power, right alongside the cockpit. He passed us, and as the boat answered to the wheel and turned, almost at right angles, the swordfish sheered too, and he hit us a sounding thud somewhere foreward. Then he went under or around the bow and began to take line off the reel for the first time. I gave him up. The line caught all along the side of the boat. But it did not break, and kept whizzing off the reel. I heard the heavy splash of another jump. When we had turned clear round, what was our amaze and terror to see the swordfish, seemingly more tigerish than ever, thresh and tear and leap at us again. He was flinging bloody spray and wigwagging his huge body, so that there was a deep, rough splashing furrow in the sea behind him. I had never known any other fish so fast, so powerful, so wild with fury, so instinct with tremendous energy and life. Dan again threw all his weight on the wheel. The helm answered, the boat swung, and the swordfish missed hitting us square. But he glanced along the port side, like a toboggan down-hill, and he seemed to ricochet over the water. His tail made deep, solid thumps. Then about a hundred feet astern he turned in his own length, making a maelstrom of green splash and white spray, out of which he rose three-quarters of his huge body, purple-blazed, tiger-striped, spear-pointed, and, with the sea boiling white around him, he spun around, creating an indescribable picture of untamed ferocity and wild life and incomparable beauty. Then down he splashed with a sullen roar, leaving a red foam on the white.

That appeared the end of his pyrotechnics. It had been only a few moments. He began to swim off slowly and heavily. We followed. After a few tense moments it became evident that his terrible surface work had weakened him, probably bursting his gills, from which his life-blood escaped.

We all breathed freer then. Captain Dan left the wheel, mopping his pale, wet face. He gazed at me to see if I had realized our peril. With the excitement over, I began to realize. I felt a little shaky then. The ladies were all talking at once, still glowing with excitement. Easy to see they had not appreciated the danger! But Captain Dan and I knew that if the swordfish had come aboard--which he certainly would have done had he ever slipped his head over the gunwale--there would have been a tragedy on the _Leta D._

"I never knew just how easy it could happen," said Dan. "No one ever before hooked a big fish right under the boat."

"With that weight, that tail, right after being hooked, he would have killed some of us and wrecked the boat!" I exclaimed, aghast.

"Well, I had him figured to come into the boat and I was ready to jump overboard," added my brother.

"We won't cut him loose," said Dan. "That's some fish. But he acts like he isn't goin' to last long."

Still, it took two hours longer of persistent, final effort on the part of R. C. to bring this swordfish to gaff. We could not lift the fish up on the stern and we had to tow him over to Mr. Jump's boat and there haul him aboard by block and tackle. At Avalon he weighed three hundred and twenty-eight pounds.

R. C. had caught the biggest Marlin in 1916--three hundred and four pounds, and this three-hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound fish was the largest for 1918. Besides, there was the remarkable achievement and record of seven swordfish in one day, with six of them freed to live and roam the sea again. But R. C. was not impressed. He looked at his hands and said:

"You and Dan put a job up on me.... Never again!"

XII

RANDOM NOTES

AVALON, _July 1, 1918_.

Cool, foggy morning; calm sea up until one o'clock, then a west wind that roughened the water white. No strikes. Did not see a fish. Trolled with kite up to the Isthmus and back. When the sun came out its warmth was very pleasant. The slopes seemed good to look at--so steep and yellow-gray with green spots, and long slides running down to the shore. The tips of the hills were lost in the fog. It was lonely on the sea, and I began again to feel the splendor and comfort of the open spaces, the free winds, the canopy of gray and blue, the tidings from afar.

_July 3d._

Foggy morning; pale line of silver on eastern horizon; swell, but no wind. Warm. After a couple of hours fog disintegrated. Saw a big Marlin swordfish. Worked him three times, then charged him. No use!

Gradually rising wind. Ran up off Long Point and back. At 3:30 was tired. We saw a school of tuna on the surface. Flew the kite over them. One big fellow came clear out on his side and got the hook. He made one long run, then came in rather easily. Time, fifteen minutes. He was badly hooked. Seventy-eight pounds.

We trolled then until late afternoon. I saw some splashes far out. Tuna! We ran up. Found patches of anchovies. I had a strike. Tuna hooked himself and got off. We tried again. I had another come clear out in a smashing charge. He ran off heavy and fast. It took fifty minutes of very hard work to get him in. He weaved back of the boat for half an hour and gave me a severe battle. He was hooked in the corner of the mouth and was a game, fine fish. Seventy-three and one-half pounds.

_July 6th._

Started out early. Calm, cool, foggy morning; rather dark. Sea smooth, swelling, heaving. Mysterious, like a shadowed opal. Long mounds of water waved noiselessly, wonderfully, ethereally from the distance, and the air was hazy, veiled, and dim. A lonely, silent vastness.

We saw several schools of tuna, but got no strikes. Worked a Marlin swordfish, but he would not notice the bait.

It was a long, hard day on the sea.

_July 10th._

We got off at 6:30 before the other boats. Smooth water. Little breeze. Saw a school of tuna above Long Point. Put up the kite. The school went down. But R. C. got a little strike. Did not hook fish.

Then we sighted a big school working east. We followed it, running into a light wind. Kite blew O. K. and R. C. got one fish (seventy-one pounds), then another (forty-eight pounds). They put up fair fights.

Then I tried light tackle. All the time the school traveled east, going down and coming up. The first fish that charged my bait came clear out after it. He got it and rushed away. I had the light drag on, and I did not thumb the pad hard, but the tuna broke the line. We tried again. Had another thrilling strike. The fish threw the hook. We had to pull in the kite, put up another one--get it out, and all the time keep the school in sight. The tuna traveled fast. The third try on light tackle resulted in another fine strike, and another tuna that broke the line.

Then R. C. tried the heavy tackle again, and lost a fish.

When my turn came I was soon fast to a hard-fighting fish, but he did not stay with me long. This discouraged me greatly.

Then R. C. took his rod once more. It was thrilling to run down on the school and skip a flying-fish before the leaders as they rolled along, fins out, silver sides showing, raising little swells and leaving a dark, winkling, dimpling wake behind them. When the bait got just right a larger tuna charged furiously, throwing up a great splash. He hit the bait, and threw the hook before R. C. could strike hard.

We had nine bites out of this school. Followed it fifteen miles. Twice we were worried by other boats, but for the rest of the time had the school alone.

_July 11th._

Morning was cold, foggy, raw. East wind. Disagreeable. Trolled out about six miles and all around. Finally ran in off east end, where I caught a yellow-fin. The sun came up, but the east wind persisted. No fish. Came in early.

_July 12th._

Went out early. Clear morning. Cool. Rippling sea. Fog rolled down like a pale-gray wall. Misty, veiled, vague, strange, opaque, silent, wet, cold, heavy! It enveloped us. Then we went out of the bank into a great circle, clear and bright, with heaving, smooth sea, surrounded by fog.

After an hour or two the fog rose and drifted away.

We trolled nine hours. Three little fish struck at the bait, but did not get the hook.

_August 6th._

To-day I went out alone with Dan. Wonderful sea. Very long, wide, deep, heaving swells, beautiful and exhilarating to watch. No wind. Not very foggy. Sunshine now and then. I watched the sea--marveled at its grace, softness, dimpled dark beauty, its vast, imponderable racing, its restless heaving, its eternal motion. I learned from it. I found loneliness, peace.

Saw a great school of porpoises coming. Ran toward them. About five hundred all crashing in and out of the great swells, making a spectacle of rare sea action and color and beauty. They surrounded the bow of the boat, and then pandemonium broke loose. They turned to play with us, racing, diving, leaping, shooting--all for our delight. I stood right up on the bow and could see deep. It was an unforgetable experience.

_August 7th._

Long run to-day, over eighty miles. East to Point Vincent, west to end of Catalina, then all around. Fine sea and weather. Just right for kite. Saw many ducks and a great number of big sharks. The ducks were traveling west, the sharks east. We saw no tuna.

Coming back the wind sprang up and we had a following sea. It was fine to watch the green-and-white rollers breaking behind us.

The tuna appear to be working farther and farther off the east end. Marlin swordfish have showed up off the east end. Three caught yesterday and one to-day. I have not yet seen a broadbill, and fear none are coming this year.

_August 8th._

Went off east end. Had a Marlin strike. The fish missed the hook. A shark took the bait. When it was pulled in to the gaff Captain Dan caught the leader, drew the shark up, and it savagely bit the boat. Then it gave a flop and snapped Captain Dan's hand.

I was frightened. The captain yelled for me to hit the shark with a club. I did not lose a second. The shark let go. We killed it, and found Dan's hand badly lacerated. My swiftness of action saved Dan's hand.

XII

BIG TUNA

It took me five seasons at Catalina to catch a big tuna, and the event was so thrilling that I had to write to my fisherman friends about it. The result of my effusions seem rather dubious. Robert H. Davis, editor of _Munsey's_, replies in this wise: "If you went out with a mosquito-net to catch a mess of minnows your story would read like Roman gladiators seining the Tigris for whales." Now, I am at a loss to know how to take that compliment. Davis goes on to say more, and he also quotes me: "You say 'the hard, diving fight of a tuna liberates the brute instinct in a man.' Well, Zane, it also liberates the qualities of a liar!" Davis does not love the sweet, soft scent that breathes from off the sea. Once on the Jersey coast I went tuna-fishing with him. He was not happy on the boat. But once he came up out of the cabin with a jaunty feather in his hat. I admired it. I said:

"Bob, I'll have to get something like that for my hat."

"Zane," he replied, piercingly, "what you need for your hat is a head!"

My friend Joe Bray, who publishes books in Chicago, also reacts peculiarly to my fish stories. He writes me a satiric, doubting letter--then shuts up his office and rushes for some river or lake. Will Dilg, the famous fly-caster, upon receipt of my communication, wrote me a nine-page prose-poem epic about the only fish in the world--black-bass. Professor Kellogg always falls ill and takes a vacation, during which he writes me that I have not mental capacity to appreciate my luck.

These fellows will illustrate how my friends receive angling news from me. I ought to have sense enough to keep my stories for publication. I strongly suspect that their strange reaction to my friendly feeling is because I have caught more and larger black-bass than they ever saw. Some day I will go back to the swift streams and deep lakes, where the bronze-backs live, and fish with my friends, and then they will realize that I never lie about the sport and beauty and wonder of the great outdoors.

Every season for the five years that I have been visiting Avalon there has been a run of tuna. But the average weight was from sixty to ninety-five pounds. Until this season only a very few big tuna had been taken. The prestige of the Tuna Club, the bragging of the old members, the gossip of the boatmen--all tend to make a fisherman feel small until he has landed a big one. Come to think of it, considering the years of the Tuna Club fame, not so very many anglers have captured a blue-button tuna. I vowed I did not care in particular about it, but whenever we ran across a school of tuna I acted like a boy.

A good many tuna fell to my rod during these seasons. During the present season, to be exact, I caught twenty-two. This is no large number for two months' fishing. Boschen caught about one hundred; Jump, eighty-four; Hooper, sixty. Among these tuna I fought were three that stand out strikingly. One seventy-three-pounder took fifty minutes of hard fighting to subdue; a ninety-one-pounder took one hour fifty; and the third, after two hours and fifty minutes, got away. It seems, and was proved later, that the number fifty figured every time I hooked one of the long, slim, hard-fighting male tuna.

Beginning late in June, for six weeks tuna were caught almost every day, some days a large number being taken. But big ones were scarce. Then one of the Tuna Club anglers began to bring in tuna that weighed well over one hundred pounds. This fact inspired all the anglers. He would slip out early in the morning and return late at night. Nobody knew where his boatman was finding these fish. More than one boatman tried to follow him, but in vain. Quite by accident it was discovered that he ran up on the north side of the island, clear round the west end. When he was discovered on the west side he at once steered toward Clemente Island, evidently hoping to mislead his followers. This might have succeeded but for the fact that both Bandini and Adams hooked big tuna before they had gone a mile. Then the jig was up. That night Adams came in with a one-hundred-and-twenty-and a one-hundred-and-thirty-six-pound tuna, and Bandini brought the record for this season--one hundred and forty-nine pounds.

Next day we were all out there on the west side, a few miles offshore. The ocean appeared to be full of blackfish. They are huge, black marine creatures, similar to a porpoise in movement, but many times larger, and they have round, blunt noses that look like battering-rams. Some seemed as big as gunboats, and when they heaved up on the swells we could see the white stripes below the black. I was inclined to the belief that this species was the orca, a whale-killing fish. Boatmen and deep-sea men report these blackfish to be dangerous and had better be left alone. They certainly looked ugly. We believed they were chasing tuna.

The channel that day contained more whales than I ever saw before at one time. We counted six pairs in sight. I saw as many as four of the funnel-like whale spouts of water on the horizon at once. It was very interesting to watch these monsters of the deep. Once when we were all on top of the boat we ran almost right upon two whales. The first spouted about fifty feet away. The sea seemed to open up, a terrible roar issued forth, then came a cloud of spray and rush of water. Then we saw another whale just rising a few yards ahead. My hair stood up stiff. Captain Dan yelled, leaped down to reverse the engine. The whale saw us and swerved. Dan's action and the quickness of the whale prevented a collision. As it was, I looked down in the clear water and saw the huge, gleaming, gray body of the whale as he passed. That was another sight to record in the book of memory. The great flukes of his tail moved with surprising swiftness and the water bulged on the surface. Then we ran close to the neighborhood of a school of whales, evidently feeding. They would come up and blow, and then sound. To see a whale sound and then raise his great, broad, shining flukes in the air, high above the water, is in my opinion the most beautiful spectacle to be encountered upon the ocean. Up to this day, during five seasons, I had seen three whales sound with tails in the air. And upon this occasion I had the exceeding good fortune to see seven. I tried to photograph one. We followed a big bull. When he came up to blow we saw a yellow moving space on the water, then a round, gray, glistening surface, then a rugged snout. Puff! His blow was a roar. He rolled on, downward a little; the water surged white and green. When he came up to sound he humped his huge back. It was shiny, leathery, wonderfully supple. It bent higher and higher in an arch. Then this great curve seemed to slide swiftly out of sight and his wonderful tail, flat as a floor and wide as a house, emerged to swing aloft. The water ran off it in sheets. Then it waved higher, and with slow, graceful, ponderous motion sank into the sea. That sight more than anything impressed me with the immensity of the ocean, with its mystery of life, with the unattainable secrets of the deep.

The tuna appeared to be scattered, and none were on the surface. I had one strike that plowed up the sea, showing the difference between the strike of a big tuna and that of a little one. He broke my line on the first rush. Then I hooked another and managed to stop him. I had a grueling battle with him, and at the end of two hours and fifty minutes he broke my hook. This was a disappointment far beyond reason, but I could not help it.

Next day was windy. The one following we could not find the fish, and the third day we all concluded they had gone for 1918. I think the fame of tuna, the uncertainty of their appearance, the difficulty of capturing a big one, are what excite the ambition of anglers. Long effort to that end, and consequent thinking and planning and feeling, bring about a condition of mind that will be made clear as this story progresses.

But Captain Danielson did not give up. The fifth day we ran off the west side with several other boats, and roamed the sea in search of fins. No anchovies on the surface, no sheerwater ducks, no sharks, nothing to indicate tuna. About one o'clock Captain Dan sheered southwest and we ran sixteen miles toward Clemente Island.

It was a perfect day, warm, hazy, with light fog, smooth, heaving, opalescent sea. There was no wind. At two thirty not one of the other boats was in sight. At two forty Captain Dan sighted a large, dark, rippling patch on the water. We ran over closer.

"School of tuna!" exclaimed the captain, with excitement. "Big fish! Oh, for some wind now to fly the kite!"

"There's another school," said my brother, R. C., and he pointed to a second darkly gleaming spot on the smooth sea.

"I've spotted one, too!" I shouted.

"The ocean's alive with tuna--big tuna!" boomed Captain Dan. "Here we are alone, blue-button fish everywhere--and no wind."

"We'll watch the fish and wait for wind," I said.

This situation may not present anything remarkable to most fishermen. But we who knew the game realized at once that this was an experience of a lifetime. We counted ten schools of tuna near at hand, and there were so many farther on that they seemed to cover the sea.

"Boys," said Captain Dan, "here's the tuna we heard were at Anacapa Island last week. The Japs netted hundreds of tons. They're working southeast, right in the middle of the channel, and haven't been inshore at all. It's ninety miles to Anacapa. Some traveling!... That school close to us is the biggest school I ever saw and I believe they're the biggest fish."

"Run closer to them," I said to him.

We ran over within fifty feet of the edge of the school, stopped the boat, and all climbed up on top of the deck.

Then we beheld a spectacle calculated to thrill the most phlegmatic fisherman. It simply enraptured me, and I think I am still too close to it to describe it well. The dark-blue water, heaving in great, low, lazy swells, showed a roughened spot of perhaps two acres in extent. The sun, shining over our shoulders, caught silvery-green gleams of fish, flashing wide and changing to blue. Long, round, bronze backs deep under the surface, caught the sunlight. Blue fins and tails, sharp and curved, like sabers, cleared the water. Here a huge tuna would turn on his side, gleaming broad and bright, and there another would roll on the surface, breaking water like a tarpon with a slow, heavy souse.

"Look at the leaders," said Captain Dan. "I'll bet they're three-hundred-pound fish."