Zane Grey by Thomas H. Pauly

Author:Thomas H. Pauly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2012-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

Launch of the Gladiator at Fellows and Stewart Shipyard, San Pedro, California, March 1921. (Courtesy of Dan Brock.)

Mindful of the risk in these ambitious claims, Grey was determined that his Gladiator deliver. Consequently, on June 19, after battling a giant broadbill for seven and one-half hours until it broke free, Grey quickly informed the local newspaper of his epic contest. With another front-page photograph of the Gladiator topped by the headline “Deep Sea Battle Catalina,” the Islander reported: “If the true fish tale is ever written of the thrilling fight with a monster swordfish that lasted more than seven and a half hours, the writer of western fiction will tell of the hope and expectancy, the extensive preparation, the long search and fruitless efforts; then of the grueling misery and physical torment that all resulted from a thread that was strained.”99 Over that same summer, Zane, R. C., and Boerstler boated many marlin, but the broadbill lived up to its reputation for elusiveness. The big one that got away remained their greatest success.100

On October 13, 1921, two weeks after Grey and his friend, “Lone Angler” Wiborn, left to go hunting in Arizona, Mrs. Keith Spalding landed a 426-pound broadbill after a fight of an hour and twenty minutes. Her fish surpassed Grey’s 1920 catch by eight pounds. Although it did not outweigh Boschen’s record broadbill, hers was four and a half inches longer.101 Though mismatched against her enormous adversary, Mrs. Spalding had substantial experience and verified skill. Born Eudora Hull, she had inherited the 5,000-acre Rancho Sespe near Pasadena, and later donated much of the property for Cal Tech’s campus. She was married to Keith Spalding, who had come to California ten years before from Chicago where his family owned the A. G. Spalding Sporting Goods Company.102 His future wife interested him in Catalina, and both became avid anglers. The year before her record broadbill, she caught a 116.5-pound tuna that should have qualified for a blue button because she followed club regulations for tackle and tactics.103 However, she was not a member because the club did not admit women, and this policy was not changed when her husband was elected president of the club in 1921.104

The ripples set off by “the little lady and her big fish” spread to the mainland, where the Los Angeles Examiner made Mrs. Spalding’s catch into a frontpage story spoofing the sport’s macho biases:

Men, it’s happened at last!

Take off your hats and hand the angler’s laurels to a member of the fair sex, and boast no more of the fish you’ve hooked … what makes the triumph all the greater for the gentler sex lies in the fact that Zane Grey, noted writer, and Arthur Parsons, wealthy San Francisco manufacturer, have been fishing all year for a broadbill with only a coat of sunburn to reward them for their efforts.105

A contemporary reader of Field and Stream might have expected the Grey brothers to be strong supporters of Mrs. Spalding’s achievement. The July 1921 issue of the magazine had carried a lead article by R.

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