Big Game at Sea 



stantly decreasing circle. He is not tired, his heart 

 is strong, but somehow he cannot do anything but 

 pull, strain and swim with dogged perseverance, and 

 the thing seems to be able to pull just a fraction 

 more; so he rises higher and higher and suddenly 

 faces boat and man. A desperate flurry ; he plunges, 

 turns, dashes under the boat, gains fifty feet, loses 

 it, comes in, always fighting, then, still alert, he is 

 struck from below, a sharp dagger-like blow that 

 maddens and kills. He whirls away, writhing, roll- 

 ing over, tosses spray high in air, makes a gallant 

 fight, but the sharp deadly weapon has impaled his 

 throat, lifts him higher and higher. He sees the 

 grim-faced, bronzed boatman step on the side of the 

 boat bearing it down to the water's edge, then, still 

 fighting, is hauled, dragged ignominiously into the 

 air, and dropped into the boat to make a final strug- 

 gle and die. 



Such is the story of a one hundred and eighty-three 

 pound leaper* of the Kuroshiwo, as he might tell it, 

 from the time he came in from the open sea in June, 

 until July when caught and gaffed after towing me 

 nearly twelve miles, in four long and hard-fought 

 hours. 



* This was the first large tuna caught, single handed, with rod and reel. The 

 author landed the fish, but the latter wore him out. This fish resulted in the 

 founding of the Tuna Club and was the record for two years, and it is believed 

 that no harder fighting fish has been taken, though several larger ones have been 

 caught. It was six feet four inches long and weighed one hundred and eighty- 

 three pounds, and when gaffed could apparently have towed the boat many miles 

 further, 



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