Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting / A record of present-day whaling with up-to-date appliances in many parts of the world, and of bear and seal hunting in the Arctic regions

by W. G. Burn Murdoch

After we had caught enough mackerel we went several miles farther out to sea, and the two men in the stern each made fast a large mackerel to his line—put the big iron hook through its nose and a fine wire twisted lightly, from the shank to the neck of the barb to prevent the fish working off.

Finally we had four of these live baits and strong lines at different depths, drifting astern; and two men at the oar gently paddled to keep the boat in position and the lines up and down. For hours we sat so, and thought tunny-fishing uncommonly dull.

If one could speak Portuguese it would help to pass the time. What fun it would have been to get the local “clash” from these pleasant-looking men, all in tatters, miraculously stitched together. How curious would have been their views of life and their experiences and traditions, but my interpreter was sick as could be, and made neither moan nor attempt at translation, so the crew chatted and better chatted between themselves, and laughed occasionally, and so passed the time, whilst the writer patiently and silently held a line for hours, waiting for the huge tug that seemed never going to come.

But the next boat to us soon got one—a whacking big fellow; he fought them for an hour and a half and they gave him twenty strokes of a bludgeon on the head in a smother of foam alongside the boat, and pulled him over the side with two huge gaffs and ropes, and then sat down exhausted. He was about two-thirds of the length of the boat and must have weighed well over three hundred pounds, and was worth £3 at the market, to the two men and two boys who got it. Lucky fellows! They lifted the boat seats to show it to us, and there it lay, a silver and blue torpedo-shaped fish with huge deep shoulders. The natives call the tunny albicore. We congratulated them and gazed at it, and listened to their gasping description of the fight, how it had sounded seven times and taken out a desperate number of lines. Then other two boats lost one each—that is, they got into fish that were too big for them, and made their lines fast, and the fish broke away. Time was their consideration; they prefer several smaller fish of, say, one or two hundred pounds to a bigger one that may weigh five hundred pounds but will take the whole day to play it.

It got tiresome as the hours went by with never a soul to speak to, for “41” and the interpreter were both still ill, and the sun got very hot, so we decided that after midday meal we would up stick and make sail. A flat hearth of charred wood was laid amidships. Three small boulders were laid on it and sticks between, and these were lit and a great tin can of sea-water was set on the stones to boil, with the fish, and sweet potatoes, in it, and a right hearty meal we made, with fingers for knives, and the blue Atlantic for a finger-bowl, and the appetising meal was washed down with water from a barrel and some ruby red vino pasto wine fit for the gods.... Ah, well, better luck next time, we were saying, as we were about to haul in our line, when the tug came, a most tremendous tug!

We are fast in a tunny at last! and a pulley-haul fight begins—what a weight it is! You feel as if you were pulling up the bottom of the ocean for a second, and then that it is pulling you, willy-nilly, into its depths, therefore you let go line, and jam it down on the gunwale to check it, and it runs, squeaking, out, cutting a groove in the wood. I cannot tell you how much stout line went out—there were many lines the thickness of flag halyards of thirty fathoms each, attached to each other—but the whole stern of the boat seemed filled with wet coiled-down line when we had been pulling in for a few minutes, and then, in a minute, it was almost gone, and then wearisomely two of us pulled it in again, hand over hand, with much gasping and tugging, more and more line is coiled up in our stern sheet, but still no sign of the fish. As the fight—pull devil, pull baker—proceeded another man managed to pull in the other lines all in a heap, and we were able to devote our united attention to the fish. It seemed strong as a horse and took us practically all in charge, and we had to be nimble to let the whizzing loops of hard line get away clear of our feet and wrists. We were pretty well blown, cut and sore, by the time its efforts lessened. Then we got in coil after coil, six coils in hand then lost two, then eight and lost one, then set teeth and pulled steadily with both hands between times, and at last and at length, the silver glitter we expected showed deep down in the blue. Even then there were many more coils to bring in; the water being so intensely clear, the enormous mackerel showed many fathoms down, swinging round and round.... The latter part of the fray needed instantaneous photography to depict it—what with the tunny pulling and our weight all leaning to one side to get the line in, and then to gaff the fish, and the roll of the sea combined, too many things happened at one time to be very clearly remembered afterwards. We had two gaffs—huge affairs—and as the tunny dashed here and there we managed to get one into it, then the second, and we lurched half-seas over; the tunny was kicking up a smother of foam all the colours of the rainbow! Then with the gaffs we pulled its head out of the water up to the gunwale, and banged it twenty times with a wooden thing like an Indian club till it was still, or only quivered, then a lurch from a blue sea seemed to help to get half of it on board, and a big heave and it all came in, and we lifted a seat and put it along the bottom and raised ourselves and waved our hats. It was quite as good fun as any salmon-fishing I have ever had, and nearly as exciting as whaling; that is, during the actual playing, but the previous waiting was trying beyond words, you get roasted by the sun and bitten by salt spray and stiff and cramped—you “chuck and chance it,” and chuck but once in half-a-day and may have to wait days and days before you catch your first tunny.

Getting all the lines clear again took a long time and neat and patient handling; we did not help at that, we were rather tired. But we watched the iridescent colours of the tunny fade; in half-an-hour its brightest blues and shimmering pinks and silver were almost gone, and changed to dark green on the back and dull silver below. Fifty-four kilos we made it out to be—five feet three inches long, with enormous girth. Unfortunately I lost its chest measurement, but think it was four feet three inches. The three-hundred-pound tunny we saw caught close to us was worth £3 at the present market value.

At four we gave up. The everlasting rolling in hot sun on tossing sea, however beautifully blue, as you lie drifting, becomes very trying in a small boat; besides, the native fishermen themselves all knock off between three and four. But we must try again, and some day, when we thoroughly know the ropes, we will get a small sailing craft and try the business single-handed, for there is a lot of fun, in my opinion, to be had fishing so, for trout or salmon—to play your own salmon and gaff it, or manage your boat and trout and land it, say a five-pounder on fine tackle, is excellent, but to land a tunny single-handed, doing your own sailing and gaffing, would be—just sublime!

It was pleasant sailing back to land close-hauled with the fresh breeze, which had risen with the sun and turned the smooth swell into crisp waves with blue breaking tops, that soft and white breaking sea of the Trades that is more caressing than threatening. Most of the other boats gave up fishing at the same time, about three P.M. The skipper gave me the tiller; neither of us could speak the other’s tongue, but there is a quick understanding between all of us who sail small boats, and both skipper and boat seemed to become old friends to me. They are better sailing craft than I had fancied, though they do not draw much, for they have to be beached; but they have two bilge keels, which make them sail pretty close—they all sail closer and are “lighter in the mouth” than I had expected. You notice in the drawing they have a high stem and stern post, and the rudder ships just as it does in the boats of the north of Norway. The sail is simple, a large square dipping lug—the canvas from Dundee—the tack is made fast at the stem, or a little to either side, and the sheet is simply rove through a hole in the gunwale of the sharp stern.