FISHING THE PACIFIC 



business. However, it is common practice to give all the small 

 fish that one does not need to the guide. 



Perhaps the reason for taking swordfish by harpoon is that 

 they bring such a high price. If the sporting harpooners feel 

 that it is a great art and real sport to harpoon why don't they 

 concentrate on sharks, which are rarely of any use? The 

 answer is that sharks are too hard to hit. It takes some real 

 skill to stick them. After trying for six years to catch my first 

 swordfish off Montauk and knowing many men who have 

 been after them twice as long and have not caught one yet, 

 and knowing what American anglers as a group have had to 

 take from them in physical beating, particularly the women, 

 do you wonder that it burns me up to see physically able men 

 harpoon them? If they are not physically able why go after 

 them at all? Why not concentrate on small fish that can be 

 taken on rod and reel, or go trout fishing? To me, harpooning 

 a swordfish or tuna is far worse than shooting a sitting 

 duck. 



Many easterners also like to harpoon giant tuna even 

 though they are harder to strike than swordfish. I hold no 

 brief for this so-called "sport," and as these grand fish bring 

 but from seven to twelve cents a pound there is even less 

 reason for harpooning them than there is for sticking sword- 

 fish. I will never forget one fine July Sunday morning in 

 1940, when I was fishing for big tuna with Ben Crownin- 

 shield off the mouth of Ipswich Bay, Massachusetts. There 

 were forty-three rod-and-reel boats in the tuna fleet all drift- 

 ing and trolling around the commercial draggers. 



Believe it or not, a well-known New Englander sailed 

 right through the fleet two or three times attempting to har- 



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