FISHING THE PACIFIC 



the striped marlin was acting. He rushed the bait, missed it, 

 and the black marhn got in from underneath. 



I returned again to Cabo Blanco in February for five days 

 just after Tony Hulman had opened the fishing world's eyes 

 with his great catches of three in four days— but again I 

 failed to sight any black marlin. 



Undaunted I was back again on the 22nd of March for 

 another go, fishing six days of that week— the 23 rd, 24th, 

 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th with no success. On Saturday after- 

 noon, the 29th, around half past two, I remarked to Mrs. 

 Bates' sister, Inez Alvarez Calderon of Lima that I would 

 go to mass next morning. The question came back, "Six 

 o'clock?" and I said: "No, I will go with you at eight. We'll 

 be late starting out in the morning." The thought was still 

 with me that I had put in fifty-four days of straight fishing 

 for black marlin without having caught one since before the 

 war and I also had forty days of blue marlin fishing since the 

 war without having one in the boat— a total of ninety-four 

 days fishing for the two big species in both oceans without 

 success. 



Within forty-five minutes after I had said that I'd go to 

 church in the morning I got a blind strike on the bait that we 

 keep very short, just off the double line in the wake. After 

 about twenty minutes of the fish being under water, from 

 which I knew it could be none other than a black, he emerged 

 and started to jump. Forty-seven minutes later this fish was 

 boated and my spell of ill luck had been broken. And this 

 within two hours of the time I had announced I was going 

 to the CathoHc church with the sefiorita in the morning. It 

 was fun to arrive at the dock that afternoon with a fish and 



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