FISHERMEN’S BATTLE

Evening Star, Issue 21819, 7 September 1934, Page 11

FISHERMEN’S BATTLE

OCTOPUS IN COCKPIT [Special to the ‘ Stab..*] AUCKLAND, September 6. With a big octopus in charge of the cockpit, the crew of the Auckland fishing launch Ruby had a strenuous few minutes out in the Gulf one day last week. When they hauled in their seine net the octopus was in the ood end (the bottom of the bag, so to speak) and could not be liberated without letting go the rest of the catch. When it was emptied out into the cockpit, together with the other fish, however, it uncoiled tentacles upwards of Bft long, and the crew realised that they had brought aboard something more than they had bargained for. Even though it was one against three, the octopus still had the advantage in number of arms, by eight to six arms, equipped on the inner side with rows of suckers from which escape is impossible once they get a grip on bare flesh. There was always the chance that the octopus would climb over the coaming of the cockpit and drop into the sea, and as it did so throw a tentacle round one of the crew and take him with it. Slipping and sliding on the wet floor of the cockpit (for the sea was choppy that day), the crew attacked the creature with their sheath knives, and with the hooks used for handling fish, 1 but the body wounds had no other effect than to make it change colours through an amazing variety of hues. Then they attacked its tentacles, which they lopped' off one by one as opportunity offered, until only the dismembered body was left—still alive hut powerless. The body was dumped overboard, but the tentacles still adhered by their suckers to the sides and bottom of the cockpit, and it took the crew all their strength to prise them loose.