The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-04-20
sharks.

A volume could be written about
the habits and traits of the tropical
sharks, says a Nassau (West Indies)
correspondent of the New York Eosn-
ing Post. In the teeming fish-life OF
these tepid waters they find abundant
food, all the more easily captured be-
cause of the transparency of the sea.
1t follows that there is an enormous
development of shark-life, both as to
number and species, rs compared with
more temperate ocean climes. In his
relations with the fishermen the shark
is a vile marplot. You may be glee-
fully hauling in fish after fish, and
cong~ratulating yourself on an hour or
two of sport. Suddenly, just as you
have started a four-pounder upward,
you see a cleaning white flash. Pull
rapidly as you will, but you will pull
in vain. Thirty feet more of line, it
may be, are drawn in. when the hook
seems to strike a rock. Perhaps the
check is but momentary; then, on
drawing in, you find only the head of
a hlnGsome fish whose body has gone
into Mr.. Sharks nav. But more likely
you have put too much strain upon the
line, and in that case the shark, fearing
the escape of the prey, has bolted
hook, fish and sinker, 50 that only
the severed line comes back. The
negro fishermen, with the aid of their
water-glasses, have been able to make
a thorough study of the habits of these
pirates of the deep, and give the shark
a high character for cunning. AS
these negroes aver, a shark will some
times follow a boat for a mile until it
comes to anchor. Then, lying in the
shadow of some %subaqueous rock, so as
not to brighten the fish from biting,
the shrewd fellow will dart out the
instant a hooked victim begins the
ascent. With a hungry shark around,
not more than one out of three hooked
fish ever reaches the rail; and there is
prOpOrtionate and veXatious loss of
hooks and sinkers. After his novel
fishing is ended, the shark ribs himself
of these impediments by rubbing his
nose and lips against projecting rocks.
Sharks of the moderate size of ten
or twelve feet may sometimes be
caught with a rope and huge hook
hung to a chain. But even then they
have a clever way of following up the
line, turning on the back, and by a
side snap of the teeth cutting the cord
as clearly as with a knife. The
larger and fiercer species of tropical
shark, from twenty-five to thirty feet
long, have never been caught here by
line, and the negroes tell wondrous
tales as to the chain hooks and huge
cords broken in tackling the big fell
lows. We have had lately here an
illustration of their voraC :. Anegro
sailor had caught one day an ordinary
shark ten feet in length and weighing
some $50 pounds. He left the crea-
ture over night on a line attached to
his boat. The next morning only the
head was found. 1t had been severed
from the body by a single clean cut
just behind the gills. AS a rule, when
once the sharks get actively at work
around the lines the legitimate sport
ends for that anchorage in fifteen OF
twenty minute =, as the fish. fly to the
rocks for protection. But sometime,
the fishermen, tying together a bottle
and piece of iron, drop it down on a
cord attached to the boat. The rist
and fall of the craft on the waves kee;
up a constant tinkling below, and, a.
water is a good sound conductor, the
sharks flee in terror. \ ray of sun,
light cast downward thr )ugh the water
glass often has Il similar effect.