Experiments in Sea Angling 



171 



indifference at times to human enemies, and I 

 acknowledge here my defeat in attempting to 

 take it with a rod, though iny experiments and 

 failures covered many days. I can only say 

 that the angler who, single-handed without the 

 aid of his boatman brings a ten- or twelve-foot 

 hammerhead to gaff with rod and reel has ac- 

 complished an angling feat worthy of record. 

 I understand this has been done several times. 

 My experiments were made with what is known 

 as yellowtail tackle a sixteen-ounce rod eight 

 feet long, a twenty-one-thread cuttyhunk line 

 with a piano-wire leader a foot long, 7/0 hook, 

 and sardine bait. My line was about five hun- 

 dred feet long, and had I had eight hundred 

 feet and a boatman I might have succeeded. 



I first hooked the shark, not knowing what 

 it was, and broke the line as I struck. In a 

 moment it came to the surface, swimming around 

 the boat so near that I could have touched it. 

 Quickly putting on another hook, I cast; the 

 shark took the bait and I hooked it, but by a 

 single jerk it again broke the line. A third hook 

 was baited and taken, and this time as I struck 

 and hooked it, it bit off the wire; but in no 

 instance did it display any pain or appear to 

 notice the hooks in its jaw. Again I hooked it, 

 gave it the bend of the rod to the limit and 

 played it for a few seconds; but the shark bore 

 off a few feet, broke the line, and came swim- 



