The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1889-10-13
SURROUNDED BY SHARKS.


ant Experience In Dory.
1t happened while Boston Globe
writer was paying visit to a fisherman
friend not long ago that the dangers out
side of fishing itself came up. The lat
ter related the following unvarnished
tale:-
l shall never forget the time when I
was a hand in small fishing vessel that
tended the Boston market. The
weather was very warm and fish scarce;
some OF the old hands thought some kind
OF destructive fish was playing havoc,
for set our travis where we would they
were skinned rs clear as though the job
was done by hand.
One evening two men that went in
dory NO. brought the news that sharks
were plenty and we had better ship to
some other berth. The anchor was cat
headed, sails hoisted and course laid
out that would bring us to Jefferies bank,
which hes about thirty or thirty-five
miles off Portland. The next morning at
daylight we were in our dories and pro-
| ceeded to set our fishing gear. My part
ner and took the outside on the western
end and all went well; we were hauling
IN f1sh for half an hour, with every
promise of good catch.
was hauling the trawl at the time, and
felt a sudden tug and yank that very
nearly took me out of the bow of the
q,
and stopped hauling to see if they would
show up. Suddenly there was twitch
| and pull harder than ever, and hauled
away as lively as possible, knowing he
would bite the line if he could to clear
himself. | pulled and he tugged, but |
kept the line coming all the time. First
he would tow us in one direction and
then in another, so | surmised we had
him by the tail and told my partner to
have a sharp knife ready to cut away
After long and hard drag got him to
the top of the water and found that he had
taken two good bitches around his tail
and was working hard to get clear. The
| next thing to do was to get his tail on the
rail of the dory and cut clear. A strong
pull by both of us placed him at our
mercy, then looked overheard to see the
kind of chap we had, and if anything
would make a fisherman feel blue it would
be look from that angry man-eating
shark that we were fast to. He would
curl up in bow, look at us with those
cold eyes, and Stat his body about in very
dangerous manner, but the line was
strong and we had him secure.
The only thing we could do was to
cut off his tail and let him go clear of the
trawl and my partner held on to one
side of his tail while l used the knife. In
a minute he was clear, and with back and
belly fms to propel with, dove for the bot
that / knew would cause trouble.
He came up with rush, jumping full
length out of the water, and dropped SO
close to our dory that the splash nigh
swamped us. We hauled away clear Of
him, and after we got our gear we started
to row for the vessel After rowing a
short distance we were in the midst of a
school of mac-eating sharks that had
scented the blood of their MANNED rela-
tive.
My partner was rowing a pair of new
oars and they attracted the sharks. They
made snap after snap at the blades, and
as our dory was deep-loaded with fish they
appeared to think we would be an easy
prey.
So hard did they press us that the new
oars had to be taken in and fish thrown
overheard to distract their attention.
We were within a quarter mile of the
vessel, and had succeeded in shaking off
all but one of them. He was smart cuss,
and would purr up alongside the dory like
a cat and never left us until we reached
our vessel and were safe aboard.