PERU 



it was really blowing. The seas were very high and it was 

 impossible to plane the fish. By planing we mean running 

 away from him with as much drag on as can be given, then 

 backing up fast and recovering line. This will often get a fish 

 that is on a course off it and it is a good way to raise a dead 

 fish. 



Again the reel went out and he got down about 900 feet. 

 With no foot-bracing and a faulty reel I was at a serious dis- 

 advantage. After having had him so near I was not in the best 

 of humors. Around 6: 30 I knew the fish was stone dead and 

 I was having very little success in raising him, but I had him 

 up to about 600 feet and things looked all right when the reel 

 suddenly went out completely. The post had broken and I 

 had no way of making repairs. The handle would turn 

 around against me as the line ran out. I could only hold him 

 on the top of certain swells. There are occasions when we can 

 use the swells to help us get line back but this was now im- 

 possible. In all my big game fishing this was my first experi- 

 ence with a broken reel and it is not one that I wish to repeat. 

 Five different times in the next hour the line went out right 

 down to the spool just as fast as I'm telling it. The simple little 

 knot we use to tie the line onto the spool did not break. The 

 line was 39-thread Ashaway and on the 1 2/0 Vom Hofe reels 

 I use we have 600 yards or 1 800 feet. They are the same that 

 are now made by Otto Swarg in St. Petersburg, Florida. At 

 7:44, or five hours and nine minutes after the fish had been 

 hooked, with about 300 feet that I had recovered with no drag 

 on the reel, all the line ran out again and it popped at the knot. 

 How that handle can whirl around— and it can really crack 

 you as it goes in reverse! This great fish which I am still certain 



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