ALBACORA 103 



followed it all the way down. He crashed into the bottom 

 of the boat. The boat came up out of the water and then 

 dropped back. "You sure you aren't scared, Mannie?" 

 Lou asked. 



"I'm not scared," Mannie insisted. 



Fortunately, both Lou and the shark were fed up with 

 the teasing game. We turned around and, with a small 

 tuna catch on hand and a neurotic shark behind us, we 

 headed back for port. 



On the dock Lou put his arm around Mannie's shoul- 

 der and grinned. "Boss," Mannie said, "I want to tell 

 you something. I was scared out there. Plenty scared. 

 But you was scared too, boss. You wouldn't keep asking 

 was I scared if you wasn't scared yourself." The two 

 men started to laugh, but I did not think that it had been 

 much of a joke. 



This very quality Lou showed, though, this ability to 

 tease a fish to fury, is an essential to good light-tackle 

 fishermen. The secret in applying light-tackle skill lies 

 in knowing how far to go and when to stop. Marlin 

 often jump themselves into exhaustion or sulk at such 

 low depths that they die of suffocation. Fish have air 

 bellows which inflate and deflate as they rise and sound. 

 Often, when they sound, fish plunge so deeply that the 

 extreme pressure kills them. I have even known fish to 

 bury themselves in the ocean bottom and suff"ocate in the 

 mud. Frequently after you have teased a huge fish into 

 taking the bait, he is too tough to raise. The trick is to 



