Special Trophies 15 1 



leaving the bone whitish. When removed from the solution, the 

 sword should be washed in fresh water and dried. 



Sawfish. The sawfish should not be confused with the 

 swordfish. The swordfish has a pointed, smooth-edged bill. 

 The sawfish's bill has a snub end and about twenty-five sharp, 

 toothlike protuberances along each side of the two lateral edges. 

 Skates and rays are closely related to the sawfish. 



A large sawfish is dangerous when being boated. Its toothed 

 bill is a formidable weapon. For this reason, the sawfish's "saw" 

 is a conversation-provoking trophy which all anglers love. It 

 can be given the same preservative treatment as described for 

 the swordfish bill. 



My pal Larry Sheerin and I had a hair-raising experience 

 with a big sawfish off the outlet of Laguna Madre in Mexico. 

 We had watched the huge fish, which looked like a vast shadow, 

 working the shallows when we were fishing for tarpon. We 

 returned in the afternoon to the same area with some big-game 

 tackle; and the sawfish, still lurking there, took the half of a 

 spotted weakfish Larry had on for bait. It's a longer story than 

 I can relate here— we got involved with some sharks while 

 fighting the sawfish. As an illustration for this book, I photo- 

 graphed the bill of that sawfish, which I have mounted on a 

 stand, alongside my son Tom, to demonstrate the impressive 

 size of the bill or saw ( Fig. 153 ) . 



Marlin and Sailfish. The marlin and the sailfish are the most 

 spectacular big-game acrobats in the sea. Any angler fortunate 

 enough to experience fighting one of these beauties certainly 

 would like to have at home some sort of memento of the oc- 

 casion. It is a comparatively rare angler who has the facilities 

 to accommodate more than one or two mounts, if any, of these 

 big fish on his walls. Therefore, the bills from marlin and sail- 

 fish make excellent trophies. 



Marlin are nearly always boated because they are not too 

 common. Evervwhere that I have fished for marlin, thev have 

 been gladly accepted as food by the local people— except off 

 our American coasts. Anglers who catch sailfish in the vicinity 



