A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



reach of the boat or spear, and have had one leap so near the 

 boat that it could have been hit with an oar. 



Spearing big fishes, or " graining " them, is a sport by 

 itself, and possesses every fascination ; but to be carried on 

 successfully, one should have shallow water. All the swordfish 

 of the New England coast are taken in this way, and allowed to 

 wear themselves out by towing a buoy, until ignominiously 

 pulled aboard the dory ; but when grained from a light boat 

 and fought to a finish, the episode assumes an entirely different 

 phase. 



As an illustration, I have played a ten-foot hammerhead 

 shark from a one hundred and twenty-five pound skiff, brought 

 it to the surface and held it, single-handed, but I could not 

 tow it in. This shark more than once almost dragged the boat 

 under water, and it took half a dozen boats to tow us back to 

 Avalon. To illustrate the game qualities of the swordfish 

 when speared, I may describe a morning's adventure on the 

 extreme outer Florida reef. The Tortugas group is an iso- 

 lated pseudo atoll about sixty miles off Key West. The keys, 

 or islands, number eight, and the central group has an out- 

 lying, partly submerged reef which forms at low tide a perfect 

 barrier to the sandy lagoon within. When the tide was at low 

 ebb, I often walked or waded along this ledge of dead coral, 

 and cast my bait into the deep water a few feet beyond. When 

 the tide was at the flood, the sea, for two miles or more, broke 

 melodiously along the line of dead coral rock. The lagoon 

 was formed by Long Key and the barrier, and had fifteen or 

 more feet of water. It was the feeding-ground of countless 



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