FISHING THE PACIFIC 



plenty of sharks but I haven't the slightest desire to harpoon 

 any more. On only one of the boats I have been aboard since 

 1930 have I allowed the harpooning of a swordfish. That was 

 in 1935 off Montauk when I was fishing with an old friend, 

 Harry Conklin, a charter boatman who had just acquired a 

 new boat and was badly in need of the money to pay for it. 

 I permitted him to harpoon a fish that refused to strike my 

 bait and I still thmk I was wrong. 



Com?nercial Fishermen 



Today, as in years past, commercial fishermen risk their 

 lives in all kinds of weather and take a terrible beating from 

 the elements. No body of men works harder and gets a 

 smaller return for the amount of time and labor involved. 

 Ninety-eight per cent of them are good chaps and I have 

 never received anything but courteous treatment from them 

 from Nova Scotia to Cuba and from Chile to Australia and 

 New Zealand and the Philippines and back to the Hawaiian 

 Islands. 



It seems to me that if it were not for the eiforts of the 

 market fishermen the rod-and-reel fishermen all over the 

 world would be retarded except on the California coast. Not 

 only does the commercial fisherman inform us when the fish 

 have arrived so that we may know when to begin our sea- 

 son's fishing, but he saves us many miles and much hard work 

 in trying to find them. But for him we would often have a 

 hard time locating places to fish; there are very few rod-and- 

 reel fishing centers where he does not supply us with bait. 

 Furthermore, he tells us what weather conditions to expect 

 and sometimes comes in pretty handy for other information 



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