The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-08-26
AN EXPERIENCE OF A FISHING CREW
IN TUE PACIFIC.

A few weeks ago the crew of the
sealing schooner Oscar had lively ex-
perience off Clayoquot, little place on
Vancouver Island. One seal had been
caught early in the morning, and at
about 10 O'Clock the hunter in one of the
boats noticed two heads some twenty
yards in front of him. The fog partly
obscured objects at any distance, and the
hunter thought the heads were those of
seal. He shot, and the discharge of his
gun was followed by shrek of agony
from one of the animals, which at once
made for the boat The men then became
aware that large female walrus,
wounded and Infatuated, was after them.
She rose up out of the water, and grasp
ing the side of the boat with her power
full tusks, tried to overturn it, There
was fight of several minutes, the men
endeavoring to beat the walrus off with
oar blades and paddles. Finally a shot
through the head killed her, and she
was towed back to the schooner as the
great prize of the season.
Whales are common sight off Cape
Flattery, and now and then few will
find their way into the waters of Puget
Sound. Not long ago a school of 10 or
II appeared in the Tacoma harbor, and
OhO pOOplO VI IuC OlOJ ny
gambols in the water. The whale that
comes here is not the common Green
land whale. but the California gray
whale or finback. Its length varies from
Is to 80 feet. One of the largest fish
found in these waters is the sturgeon,
which runs up into the Columbia and
the other rivers of Washington. Last
week Mrs. Andrews of South Bend was
fishing for porgies, when she saw near
by six-foot sturgeon stranded upon the
sand and making furious attempts to
reach deep water. Mrs. Andrews is
small woman, but full of courage; so,
selling club, she went for the sturgeon
and pounded it into insensibility. Then
she brought her husband, who cut it up
into strips and dried the flesh,
An Indian fishing in the Columbia for
salmon recently caught big shark. The
Indian had seine, one end of which was
anchored to the shore. As he was tow
ing the outer end around circle he felt
strong jerk on the net. He promptly
pulled for the shore, and upon drawing
the net in he found that huge shark
was foundering in the meshes. At first
the Indian was inclined to let go of the
net and cut it and let the monster escape,
but his sportsman's instinct prevailed,
and he decided to bring the fellow to
land. Fastening the anchored end even
more firmly, he proceeded slowly to draw
up on the beach the other end. As the
shark came into the shallow water it
struggled more and more furiously to
get out into the deep channel. Several
times it looked as if the shark would be
the victor in the fight, but the Indian
hitched the net ropes around young
tree and kept every inch that he gained.
Whenever the shark would become quiet
for moment, the man would pull in
few more feet of the net. At last the
shark was where the Indian could wade
in and thrust long knife into it's vitals.
The fish seemed but very little disturbed
by the wounds it received, and the
Indian must have stabbed it in fifty diff
ferent places before it began to show
sigus of yielding. After about two
hours of struggling, during which the
water for yards around became red with
blood, the shark yielded to fate, and was
drawn on the beach. When measured iG
was found to be 16 feet long, and it's
weight 1900 pounds. A seal and
sturgeon, partly digested, were in the
stomach. The Indians in the vicinity
eagerly seized upon the teeth, which they
use in making necklaces.-Sedttle Cor
TeSpondence,. 81. Louis Globe Democrat.