Sharks on a Line 103 



help— until the wire leader is near enough to grasp. It is also considered 

 cricket to muster help for getting a rope around the shark and hauling 

 it up to the pier. These post-battle tasks are not always easy. 



One day, Peter Botha was out at the end of the pier when another 

 fisherman caught an 800-pounder, which was technically landed, except 

 for the fact that it was lodged in some rocks a few feet off the pier. Botha 

 jumped out on the rocks, one hand holding onto the wire leader, the 

 other grasping a gaff. He leaped atop a small rock and, just as he lunged 

 to gaff the shark, a wave smashed over his perch and hurled him into 

 the sea, directly in front of the jaws of the thrashing shark. Luckily, 

 Botha had not lost his handhold on the leader. Hand over hand, he 

 pulled himself along the leader and got back on the rocks. 



A year after this incident, Botha found out what can happen to a 

 person who strays near the jaws of a killer shark. He caught a 600- 

 pounder and cut it open. In its belly he found the head, right arm, and 

 part of the backbone of a man. 



Colonel Hugh D. Wise, who long and avidly fished for several 

 species of sharks along the Atlantic coast of the United States, says 

 some sharks were fast, some struck savagely and then ran, and some 

 were just plain mulish. All, however, exerted formidable pulls on the 

 line. Curious about the force of these pulls. Wise set up a novel experi- 

 ment to determine how hard a shark pulls. From his boat, he hooked 

 some sharks on a thick rope that was threaded through a spring scale 

 held by two men in the boat. Wise found that a 230-pound Sand shark 

 8V2 feet long could exert a 110-pound pull— about .48 of a pound of pull 

 for each pound of its weight. When the shark tired, the pulls dropped 

 drastically to feeble surges averaging a mere 18 pounds. Wise reported 

 that sharks use their maximum strength sparingly, and rest frequently 

 from their exertions. 



"It is interesting to consider this in comparison with the wild and 

 almost continuous fury of the swordfish," Wise noted,^ "but also let 

 it be remembered that it is this intermittent resting which adds to the 

 difficulty of conquering the shark." 



The Sawfish and six species of shark— Blue, Mako, Great White, 

 Porbeagle, Thresher, and Tiger— are recognized as game fish by the 

 International Game Fish Association, which sternly authenticates world 

 game-fish records. Anglers are beginning to recognize sharks too. Fish- 

 ing clubs devoted exclusively to shark-catching have been attracting 

 anglers from Florida to New Zealand. 



Members of the Shark Angling Club of Great Britain, who fish the 

 sharky waters off Looe in Cornwall, have been reeling in more than 



2 Hugh D. Wise, Tigers of the Sea (New York: Derrydale Press, 1937). 



