Tales of Swordfish and Tuna by Zane Grey

Author:Zane Grey
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-05T16:00:00+00:00

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III. A RECORD FIGHT WITH A SWORDFISH

ON the very first day of our 1919 season, July 1st, my brother R. C. and I, with Captain Danielson, had the longest and hardest swordfish battle on record.

Come to think of it, there are on record really very few battles with broadbill swordfish. To be sure, many of the old gladiators of the sea have been hooked by random Catalina anglers, but swordfishermen themselves do not credit the many instances where some one happened to hook a broadbill and fought it for a few moments or perhaps longer. As a matter of fact, few novices at the game ever held a broadbill longer than a few moments. Credit has gone to the few men who deliberately go out after broadbills, and keep on going day after day for weeks and months.

Old Xiphias gladius is the noblest warrior of all the sea fishes. He is familiar to all sailors. He roams the Seven Seas. He was written about by Aristotle 2,300 years ago. In the annals of sea disasters there are records of his sinking ships. In the logs of many mariners have been found accounts of this old swordfish attacking ships and sending them back to port for repairs. Tales of his attacks on harpooners' boats in the Atlantic are common. In these waters, where he is hunted for the market, he has often killed his pursuers. In the Pacific, off the Channel Islands, he has not killed any angler or boatman yet, but it is a safe wager that he will do so some day. Therefore, despite the wonderful nature of the sport, it is not remarkable that so few anglers have risked it. Of all the Tuna Club anglers there are only five who have won the gold-and-white broadbill swordfish button—Boschen, Adams, Johnson, Farnum, and myself.

July 1st seemed the most perfect of days. All Avalon days are perfect, but this day was something to make a man keen to the joy of life and the beauty of nature. A fisherman's hopes are of the future and his joys are of the present.

The fog broke up and rolled away early that morning, letting the sunshine down bright and warm. The sky shone azure blue, and the sea under it a deeper blue. Dark, glancing ripples, here and there with crests of white, waved regularly away before the west wind.

We took my boy Romer with us, and the occasion was his initial experience on the sea. I hoped to make a fisherman of him, but, alas, in his ten years of existence, he had not yet shown any remarkable tendencies toward that end. Romer's idea of fishing, like that of many grown-up men I know, was to sit on a rock or a bank or a dock—some sure, steady, safe place—and throw a lot of baited hooks into the water, and pull out fish until he had caught more than anybody else. Upon this occasion it was difficult to persuade Romer that he was merely a guest and somewhat fortunate to be that.

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