Omaha daily bee., 1896-08-30
DANGERS OF swORDFIsHING.
Monsters Turn on Their
IurtIrS

wounded Monsters Turn on Theil
P~ursuers.
Fifteen or twenty miles out of the old por
of Stonington, Conn, on the hither edge o
the Gulf stream, is where the Connection
fishermen go to do battle with the swordfsh
whose flesh the world has just begun t.
prize. 1t is not by any means a life o.
ease and inactivity cruising after these
solitary providers of the deep who carry theiI
sabers in their shouts. 1t is arduous and
perilous, but desperately fascinating work
says the New York Herald.
Far out on the bowsprit of every fishing
schooner there is a little iron banded "pul-
pit" where stands the harpooner, weapon in
hand, riding up to his fearless game. A
swift and accurate hurl into the monsters
side and away he bounds, furious with rage
and pain. with a floating keg attached to
| the iron dart by fathoms of rope. The vessel
sails after him, like a tireless hound on the
trail of a fox, and the marine hunters have
only to keep sight of him until he has eX-
hausted himself with his mad rushes through
the seas.
When the time comes, however-it may lie
in half an hour or it may be twice that time
for the plucky sportsman to deal the fin
ishing stroke to the warrior of the deep,
then, II ever, hunter and game work on
fairly equal terms.
The harpooner quits the vessel in a yawl,
armed with AK, club or spear, and pulls his
frail craft to the side of the dying fish. 1t
may be that the moribund giant is breathless
and really exhausted; If so, the harpooner
has only to draw up to where is measured
the bulky length upon the surface of the
ocean, plunge his sharp spear into heart or
brain, or deal a crushing blow upon the
head.
But If the big fellow is only %feinting, there
is likely to be trouble. Sulkily and warily,
but motionless, he notes the harpooner's ad-
vance, and when the latter has driven his
boat to a point not a half dozen rods away,
suddenly the great fish arouses him
self, shakes the lethargy out of
his frame and the brine out of his
glimmering eyes and rushes upon his foe
like a whirlwind. Rarely does he miss his
drive, and the fisherman is impotent to
evade 1t. The fish cleaves the waves with
the speed and fury Of a war horse; a sud
den dip beneath the waves and 10! he has
leaping into the stern of his craft, hears a
great rush OF waters beneath him, and
with the sound of ripping timbers a long,
slender, black rapieT is driven through the
boat from side to side.
Lucky it is, indeed, for the boatman. If
he, too. be not in line with the straight,
irresistible thrust. If he is, the shaT,
bone saber will split him also as swiftly
and easily as a cook skewers a chicken.
Instances are not wanting in which a boat
man has had both his legs speared through
by the sword of a furious swordfsh and
himself firmly impaled to the sides OF his
yawl. One S~tonington fisherman was cleft
in that way two summers ago, and / re-
member when a hunter of the marine
swordsman was spitted in his seat, the
boat lance penetrating into his body.
Such instances are not uncommon; the
greatest wonder is that, such is the fury
of a wounded swordfsh, more men are not
manned or slain each season in this p%erilous
sport OF the Atlantic seaboard. A
wounded fish seldom attacks a
schooner itself, but several seasons ago
a big fellow drove headlong into a
vessel and his sword entered It's walls, pro-
truding several inches into the cabin. The
fish, in his angry wrenching to free shim-
self, broke on the end OF the blade.
Swordhsh steak is as fine and savory a
morsel as can be gathered in the ocean and
the demand for it IL steadily growing.