Tales Of Fishes (1928) (17 page)

Sam took an oar and slowly poled inshore, while I stood up on a seat to watch for fish. The water was from six to eighteen inches deep and very clear and still. The bottom appeared to be a soft mud, gray, almost white in color, with patches of dark grass here and there. It was really marl, which is dead and decayed coral.

Scarcely had we gotten over the edge of this shoal when we began to see things--big blue crabs, the kind that can pinch and that play havoc with the fishermen's nets, and impudent little gray crabs, and needle-fish, and small chocolate-colored sharks--nurse sharks, Sam called them--and barracuda from one foot to five feet in length, and whip-rays and sting-rays. It was exceedingly interesting and surprising to see all these in such shallow water. And they were all tame.

Here and there we saw little boils of the water, and then a muddy patch where some fish had stirred the marl. Sam and I concluded these were made by bonefish. Still, we could not be sure. I can see a fish a long way in the water and I surely was alert. But some time elapsed and we had poled to within a few rods of the mangroves before I really caught sight of our coveted quarry. Then I saw five bonefish, two of them large, between the boat and the mangroves. They were motionless. Somehow the sight of them was thrilling. They looked wary, cunning, game, and reminded me of gray wolves I had seen on the desert. Suddenly they vanished. It was incredible the way they disappeared. When we got up to the place where they had been there were the little swirls in the roiled water.

Then Sam sighted two more bonefish that flashed away too swiftly for me to see. We stuck an oar down in the mud and anchored the boat. It seemed absolutely silly to fish in water a foot deep. But I meant to try it.

Putting a crab on my hook, I cast off ten or a dozen yards, and composed myself to rest and watch.

Certainly I expected no results. But it was attractive there. The wide flat stretched away, bordered by the rich, dark mangroves. Cranes and pelicans were fishing off the shoals, and outside rippled the green channel, and beyond that the dark-blue sea. The sun shone hot. There was scarcely any perceptible breeze. All this would have been enjoyable and fruitful if there had not been a fish within a mile.

Almost directly I felt a very faint vibration of my line. I waited, expectantly, thinking that I might be about to have a bite. But the line slackened and nothing happened.

There were splashes all around us and waves and ripples here and there, and occasionally a sounding thump. We grew more alert and interested.

Sam saw a bonefish right near the boat. He pointed, and the fish was gone. After that we sat very still, I, of course, expecting a bite every moment. Presently I saw a bonefish not six feet from the boat. Where he came from was a mystery, but he appeared like magic, and suddenly, just as magically, he vanished.

"Funny fish," observed Sam, thoughtfully. Something had begun to dawn upon Sam, as it had upon me.

No very long time elapsed before we had seen a dozen bonefish, any one of which I could have reached with my rod. But not a bite! I reeled in to find my bait gone.

"That bait was eaten off by crabs," I said to Sam, as I put on another.

Right away after my cast I felt, rather than saw, that slight vibration of my line. I waited as before, and just as before the line almost imperceptibly slackened and nothing happened.

Presently I did see a blue crab deliberately cut my line. We had to move the boat, pick up the lost piece of line, and knot it to the other. Then I watched a blue crab tear off my bait. But I failed to feel or see that faint vibration of my line. We moved the boat again, and again my line was cut. These blue crabs were a nuisance. Sam moved the boat again. We worked up the flat nearer where the little mangroves, scarce a foot high, lifted a few leaves out of the water. Whenever I stood up I saw bonefish, and everywhere we could hear them. Once more we composed ourselves to watch and await developments.

[Illustration: SURGING IN A HALF-CIRCLE]

[Illustration: BROADBILL SWORDFISH ON THE SURFACE--THE MOST THRILLING

SIGHT TO A SEA ANGLER]

In the succeeding hour I had many of the peculiar vibrations of my line, and, strange to see, every time I reeled in, part of my bait or all of it was gone. Still I fished on patiently for a bonefish bite.

Meanwhile the sun lost its heat, slowly slanted to the horizon of mangroves, and turned red. It was about the hour of sunset and it turned out to be a beautiful and memorable one. Not a breath of air stirred.

There was no sound except the screech of a gull and the distant splashes of wading birds. I had not before experienced silence on or near salt water. The whole experience was new. We remarked that the tide had not seemed to rise any higher. Everywhere were little swells, little waves, little wakes, all made by bonefish. The sun sank red and gold, and all the wide flat seemed on fire, with little mangroves standing clear and dark against the ruddy glow. And about this time the strangest thing happened. It might have been going on before, but Sam and I had not seen it. All around us were bonefish tails lifted out of the water. They glistened like silver. When a bonefish feeds his head is down and his tail is up, and, the water being shallow, the upper fluke of his tail stands out. If I saw one I saw a thousand. It was particularly easy to see them in the glassy water toward the sunset.

A school of feeding bonefish came toward us. I counted eleven tails out of the water. They were around my bait. Now or never, I thought, waiting frantically! But they went on feeding--passed over my line--and came so near the boat that I could plainly see the gray shadow shapes, the long, sharp noses, the dark, staring eyes. I reeled in to find my bait gone, as usual. It was exasperating.

We had to give up then, as darkness was not far off. Sam was worried about the boat. He rowed while I stood up. Going back, I saw bonefish in twos and fours and droves. We passed school after school. They had just come in from the sea, for they were headed up the flat. I saw many ten-pound fish, but I did not know enough about bonefish then to appreciate what I saw. However, I did appreciate their keen sight and wariness and wonderful speed and incredible power. Some of the big surges made me speculate what a heavy bonefish might do to light tackle.

Sam and I were disappointed at our luck, somewhat uncertain whether it was caused by destructive work of crabs or the wrong kind of bait or both. It scarcely occurred to us to inquire into our ignorance.

We found the boat hard and fast in the mud. Sam rowed me ashore. I walked back to camp, and he stayed all night, and all the next day, waiting for the tide to float the boat.

After that on several days we went up to the flat to fish for bonefish.

But we could not hit the right tide or the fish were not there. At any rate, we did not see any or get any bites.

Then I began to fish for bonefish in front of my cottage. Whenever I would stick my rod in the sand and go in out of the hot sun a bonefish would take my bait and start off to sea. Before I could get back he would break something.

This happened several times before I became so aroused that I determined to catch one of these fish or die. I fished and fished. I went to sleep in a camp-chair and absolutely ruined my reputation as an ardent fisherman. One afternoon, just after I had made a cast, I felt the same old strange vibration of my line. I was not proof against it and I jerked. Lo! I hooked a fish that made a savage rush, pulled my bass-rod out of shape, and took all my line before I could stop him.

Then he swept from side to side. I reeled him in, only to have him run out again and again and yet again. I knew I had a heavy fish. I expected him to break my line. I handled him gingerly. Imagine my amaze to beach a little fish that weighed scarcely more than two pounds! But it was a bonefish--a glistening mother-of-pearl bonefish. Somehow the obsession of these bonefishermen began to be less puzzling to me. Sam saw me catch this bonefish, and he was as amazed as I was at the gameness and speed and strength of so small a fish.

Next day a bonefisherman of years' experience answered a few questions I put to him. No, he never fished for anything except bonefish. They were the hardest fish in the sea to make bite, the hardest to land after they were hooked. Yes, that very, very slight vibration of the line--that strange feeling rather than movement--was the instant of their quick bite. An instant before or an instant after would be fatal.

It dawned upon me then that on my first day I must have had dozens of bonefish bites, but I did not know it! I was humiliated--I was taken down from my lofty perch--I was furious. I thanked the gentleman for his enlightenment and went away in search of Sam. I told Sam, and he laughed--laughed at me and at himself. After all, it was a joke. And I had to laugh too. It is good for a fisherman to have the conceit taken out of him--if anything can accomplish that. Then Sam and I got our heads together. What we planned and what we did must make another story.

Chapter
IX

SWORDFISH

From records of the New York Bureau of Fisheries, by G. B. Goode The swordfish, Xiphias gladius, ranges along the Atlantic coast of America from Jamaica (latitude 18| N.), Cuba, and the Bermudas, to Cape Breton (latitude 47| N.). It has not been seen at Greenland, Iceland, or Spitzbergen, but occurs, according to Collett, at the North Cape (latitude 71|). It is abundant along the coasts of western Europe, entering the Baltic and the Mediterranean. I can find no record of the species on the west coast of Africa south of Cape Verde, though Lutken, who may have access to facts unknown to me, states that they occur clear down to the Cape of Good Hope, South Atlantic in mid-ocean, to the west coast of South America and to southern California (latitude 34|), New Zealand, and in the Indian Ocean off Mauritius.

The names of the swordfish all have reference to that prominent feature, the prolonged snout. The "swordfish" of our own tongue, the "zwardfis" of the Hollander, the Italian "sofia" and "pesce-spada," the Spanish "espada" and "espadarte," varied by "pez do spada" in Cuba, and the French "espadon," "dard," and "epee de mer," are simply variations of one theme, repetitions of the "gladius" of ancient Italy and "xiphius," the name by which Aristotle, the father of zoology, called the same fish twenty-three hundred years ago. The French "empereur" and the "imperador" and the "ocean kingfish" of the Spanish and French West Indies, carry out the same idea, for the Roman Emperor was always represented holding a drawn sword in his hand. The Portuguese names are "aguhao," meaning "needle," or "needle-fish."

This species has been particularly fortunate in escaping the numerous redescriptions to which almost all widely distributed forms have been subjected. By the writers of antiquity it was spoken of under its Aristotelian name, and in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturu, at the very inception of binomial nomenclative, Linnaeus called it Xiphias gladius. By this name it has been known ever since, and only one additional name is included in its synonym, Xiphias rondeletic of Leach.

The swordfish has been so long and so well known that its right to its peculiar name has seldom been infringed upon. The various species of Tetrapturus have sometimes shared its title, and this is not to be wondered at, since they closely resemble Xiphias gladius, and the appellative has frequently been applied to the family Xiphiidu--the swordfish--which includes them all.

The name "bill-fish," usually applied to our Tetrapturus albidus, a fish of the swordfish family, often taken on our coast, must be pronounced objectionable, since it is in many districts used for various species of Belonidu, the garfishes or green-bones (Belone truncata and others), which are members of the same faunas. Spear-fish is a much better name.

The "sailfish," Histiophorus americanus, is called by sailors in the South the "boohoo" or "woohoo." This is evidently a corrupted form of "guebum," a name, apparently of Indian origin, given to the same fish in Brazil. It is possible that Tetrapturus is also called "boohoo," since the two genera are not sufficiently unlike to impress sailors with their differences. Blecker states that in Sumatra the Malays call the related species, H. gladius, by the name "Joohoo" (Juhu), a curious coincidence. The names may have been carried from the Malay Archipelago to South America, or vice versa, by mariners.

In Cuba the spear-fish are called "aguja" and "aguja de palada"; the sailfish, "aguja prieta" or "aguja valadora"; Tetrapturus albidus especially known as the "aguja blanca," T. albidus as the "aguja de castro."

In the West Indies and Florida the scabbard-fish or silvery hairy-tail, Trichiurus lepturus, a form allied to the Xiphias, though not resembling it closely in external appearance, is often called "swordfish." The body of this fish is shaped like the blade of a saber, and its skin has a bright, metallic luster like that of polished steel, hence the name.

Swordfish are most abundant on the shoals near the shore and on the banks during the months of July and August; that they make their appearance on the frequented cruising-grounds between Montauk Point and the eastern part of Georges Banks sometime between the 25th of May and the 20th of June, and that they remain until the approach of cold weather in October and November. The dates of the first fish on the cruising-grounds referred to are recorded for three years, and are reasonably reliable: in 1875, June 20th; in 1877, June 10th; in 1878, June 14th.

South of the cruising-grounds the dates of arrival and departure are doubtless farther apart, the season being shorter north and east. There are no means of obtaining information, since the men engaged in this fishery are the only ones likely to remember the dates when the fish are seen.