Another strange thing about the natural histories that I have been able to consult is that no idea seems to be formed of where and how these fish spawn. Being met with all over the ocean, where its profound depth precludes all idea of their visiting the bottom, the locality of their breeding-places has puzzled the savants. There can, however, be no doubt that they deposit their ova in the massive banks of Sargasso bacciferum, or Gulf-weed, which is met with in such vast quantities as to impede a vessel’s progress through it. Through the pleasant groves and avenues of these floating forests, the young fry in millions disport in comparative security, while finding abundant food among the myriad lower forms of life that abound there. Of course, this remark can only apply to the Atlantic. Not having had opportunities enough of observation, I am unable to say where they spawn in the other oceans they frequent. On the coral reefs of the Leeward Islands and the sandy cays of the Caribbean Sea, I have often amused myself by catching the young fry thrown up with piles of Gulf-weed on the beach, and seen masses of the spawn, like huge bunches of white currants, entangled among its close-knit fronds.
Barbados, situated in the heart of the north-east Trades, is one of the favourite haunts of the flying-fish. Its steep shore-lines afford the blue depths which the flying-fish loves, and permit it to range very near to land. Thus the fishermen rarely go more than ten or twelve miles from home. When this industry was first commenced by the Barbadians, or what led to its establishment, I have been unable to discover; but it certainly has been for many years the mainstay of a large part of the population, and the source whence the most popular food known on the island is derived. There are (or were) about two hundred boats engaged in the fishery. Nowise notable for grace of form or elegance of rig, they are substantial undecked vessels, of from five to fifteen tons capacity, built in the roughest manner, and furnished in the most primitive way. The motive power is a gaff-mainsail and jib, and a couple of sweeps for calms. They are painted a light blue, as nearly approaching the hue of the sea as may be, and every care is taken to make them noiseless.
The fleet leaves the “canash” (harbour) before daybreak, each skipper taking his own bearings, and making for the spot which he thinks will furnish the best results. As the gorgeous tropical dawn awakes, the boats’ peaks are drooped, luffs of sails are hauled up, and the fishermen get to business. The tackle used is of the simplest kind. A wooden hoop three feet in diameter, to which is attached a shallow net with inch meshes; a bucketful of—well, not to put too fine a point on it—stinking fish; a few good lines and hooks, and a set of granes, form the complete lay-out. The fishermen are of all shades, from a deep rich ebony upwards, by fine gradations, to the cadaverous white so common in the island. Their simple fishing costume is usually one sole garment—the humble flour or potato sack of commerce, with holes cut in the bottom and sides, through which to thrust head and arms.
As soon as the boat is hove-to and her way stopped, the usual exuberant spirits and hilarious laughter are put and kept under strong restraint, for a single sound will often scare away all fish in the vicinity, and no more be seen that day. The fisherman leans far over the boat’s side, holding the hoop diagonally in one hand. The other hand, holding one of the malodorous fish before mentioned, is dipped into the sea, and the bait squeezed into minute fragments. This answers a double purpose—it attracts the fish; and the exuding oil forms a “sleek” or glassy surface all around, through which one can see to a great depth. Presently, sundry black specks appear far down; they grow larger and more numerous, and the motionless black man hanging over the gunwale scarcely breathes. As soon as a sufficient number are gathered, he gently sweeps the net downwards and towards the boat withal, bringing it to the surface by drawing it up against the side. Often it will contain as many fish as a man can lift; but so quietly and swiftly is the operation performed, that the school is not startled, and it very often happens that a boat is filled (that is, seven or eight thousand fish) from one school. More frequently, however, the slightest noise, even a passing shadow, will alarm the school; there is a flash of silvery light, and the water is clear, not a speck to be seen. Sometimes the fleet will return with not one thousand fish among them, when prices will range very high, until next day, when, with fifty or sixty boats bringing five or six thousand each, a penny will purchase a dozen.
Occasionally, in the midst of a good spell of fishing, the school will vanish, and a crowd of dolphin, albacore, or bonito make their appearance. Then the sport changes its character. Lines are hastily unrolled, a living flying-fish is impaled on the hook and trolled astern, seldom failing to allure an albacore or some other large fish, varying perhaps from twenty to two hundred pounds weight. On one occasion, when I had the pleasure of a cruise in one of the boats, we had very poor sport with the flying-fish, only taking about five hundred by noon. Suddenly the few that had been feeding quietly around us fled in all directions, breaking the water with a sound like a sudden rain-storm, and we were aware of the presence of a huge albacore. The skipper shouted gleefully: “By king, sah, him de bigges’ albacore in de whol’ worl’.” He certainly was a monster; but there was little time to admire his proportions. He promptly seized our bait; and the fun commenced. For over an hour this giant mackerel towed us where he would; and when for a moment the pace slackened and we touched the line, he was off again as hard as ever. Right through the fleet he towed us, and finally yielded to our united efforts in the middle of Carlisle Bay, amongst the shipping. We could not hoist him on board, and so had recourse to the expedient of passing a double bight of the line round his tail and towing him into the harbour. Great was the excitement on the quay, and willing hands not a few worked the crane wherewith we lifted him. He scaled four hundred and seventy pounds, the heaviest albacore on record in Barbados. Peddled around the town, he realised a much larger sum than a boat-load of flying-fish would have done; and so the sable skipper was well content with his morning’s work.
XVIII
UNCONVENTIONAL FISHING
Enthusiastic anglers have, I believe, been heard to declare with emphasis that they would rather catch no fish at all than return with a full creel inveigled in an “unsportsmanlike” way. Of course, ideas of what constitutes sport vary almost with the individual, since like the rubric—(with red edges, please)—sporting canons are susceptible of private interpretation. But if the ultimate object of fishing be the gratification of catching fish, my stupidity baulks at the notion of an angler, enthusiastic or stolid, preferring to be unsuccessful rather than to succeed by the exercise of a little personal ingenuity, whether it be unconventional or canonical. What can be more pathetic, for instance, than to see a perfectly-equipped sportsman, whose outfit has made a terrible hole in a £20 note, watching with simulated indifference outwardly, but black envy clawing his liver, some grimy urchin with string and stick grassing fish after fish, while he is unable to get a rise? Perhaps, however, my point of view is unfair, because one-sided. For while it has many hundreds of times been my lot to either catch some fish or go without a meal, which certainly quickened my interest in the sport, I have seldom had the pleasure of fishing merely for amusement. Although never a professional fisherman, and therefore a hater of nets as reducing the joy or success to the level of scavenging, I have from a very early age, and in nearly every part of the world washed by the sea, taken a hand at fishing from deep personal motives, and always on unconventional lines.
My first introduction to the stern delights of sea-fishing was in a Jamaican harbour when I was thirteen years old. Having been shipwrecked I was for the time by way of being a juvenile beachcomber, but I had plenty of good-natured darky chums. Four of them took me out one day in their canoe barracouta-fishing. Now this fish is a sort of sea-pike which sometimes reaches four feet in length, and for his fierceness is more dreaded in the West Indies by bathers than the much maligned shark. His principal food is small fish, although he is not dainty. In order to imitate as nearly as possible the flight of his usual prey, it is customary for four darkies to man a canoe, get well out to sea during the early morning calm, and then paddle furiously for a few hundred yards at a time, towing a small mackerel at the end of a stout line. On this occasion I held the line. I thought it glorious fun; but suddenly I saw a bar of silver leap into the air, followed instanter by my sudden exit from the canoe. I had a turn of the line round my hand, a trick of inexperience. There was a good deal of noise and excitement, during which the dugout capsized and spilled her crew around, while the big fish did his best to tow the light craft away from us; but in some mysterious scrambling fashion we all embarked again. By this time the ’couter was very tired, allowing us to haul him up alongside and take him aboard quite peaceably. Then hey for the beach, borrow a truck, and peddle the prize around town at so much a pound. But they wouldn’t take me any more.
A good deal of promiscuous fishing of an unsatisfactory kind was added to my youthful experiences before I reached home, some of it only to be recalled with many pangs. After a long, weary pull in the sweltering, tropical evenings, to drop upon some ghoulish reef-spur and break hook after hook in the rugged coral branches until no more remained, and we must needs return hungry and dispirited—these are not pleasant things to remember. But the following year I made my first long voyage, and on the passage out got an experience that makes my finger-tips tingle to-day. With envious eyes I had watched the mate, as from the end of the flying jibboom he had vainly tried to cozen some bonito (a sort of exaggerated mackerel) that were accompanying the ship into the belief that a shred of white rag with which he was flicking the water was a flying-fish. Naturally, I burned to show that I could succeed, and no sooner had he come in to take the sun than I was out along the boom like a rat to take his place. There was a fresh breeze blowing, and as the ship heeled and plunged the line blew far away to leeward in a graceful curve which only permitted the rag to touch the wave-tops occasionally. I trembled so with excitement that I could not have kept my perch, but that my legs were jammed in between the jib guys and the boom. I had not been there more than five minutes when a splendid fish sprang twenty feet into the air and swallowed my bait on the wing. I hauled for dear life, scarcely daring to look below where my prize hung dangling, a weight I could only just manage to pull up. But I succeeded at last, and grabbed him to my panting breast. There wasn’t time to get scared at the contract I had on my hands; I just hung on while his tremendous vibrations benumbed my body so that I could not even feel that he was actually chafing all the skin off my ribs. At last, feeling my strength almost gone, I plunged him into the folds of the flying-jib, which was furled on the boom, and laid on him. In this way I succeeded in overcoming his reluctance to stay with me, and eventually I bore him on board in triumph, not even dashed by the effective ropes-ending I got for soaking the jib in blood from head to tack. After that memorable capture I was simply crazed with fishing. Even in calms, when predatory fish such as dolphin, barracouta, bonito, or albacore hang around listlessly and are considered quite uncatchable by seamen generally, I have managed to deceive them and obtain that great desideratum, a fresh mess for all hands. But coming home round the Cape, when in the strength of the Agulhas current, the wind failed, and the mate got out the deep-sea lead-line. In orthodox fashion we passed it forrard and dropped the long plummet into the dark depths, with two or three stout hooks, baited with lumps of fat pork, fastened to it. When we hauled it in each hook was burdened with a magnificent cod, and a scene of wild excitement ensued. All the watch improvised tackle of some kind—a piece of hambro’ line, a marlinespike for sinker, and one hook was the usual outfit—and in a couple of hours the deck was like Billingsgate. All sorts and conditions of fish apparently lived down there, and all most accommodating in their appetite.