“List! Ye Anglers”

Northland Age, Volume 28, Issue 36, 25 April 1928, Page 2

“List! Ye Anglers”

Big Game Fish Records.

South Africa’s Challenge

On January 25 last a cable mes- - sage from Wellington, was sent to South Africa, and appeared in the daily papers of the following day. It said: "Lord Grimthorpe, a Yorkshire peer, and head of Beckett’s Bank, has landed a shark weighing 6301 b, which is believed to be the woild’s record catch.”

Several South Africa papers refuted the claim in a footnote to the message and hold that the record is easily held by Durban, but that claim is disposed of by an immense shark which was caught in our great sports fishing grounds in the North by a South , African visitor two years ago. The Natal Mercury gave great prominence to the message heading it: “Record claimed for New Zealand minnow” “A very fishy shark story,” and adding the following footnote; — Much publicity has been given to the sport offering for big game anglers in New Zealand waters among the sharks but the claim that a 6301 b catch constitutes a record suggests that Durban’s shark-fishing has not been boosted as it might have been. The weight mentioned in the cable has been beaten many times at Durban, where the biggest catch on rod and line in recent years was a shark that scaled 9371 b. It was taken from the north breakwater in 1926 by a well-known local angler who baits for big game.” The Daily Despatch heads the message : “List, ye anglers,” and the Cape Argus also disputes New Zealand’s claim. There are sharks and sharks, and the visit of Mr Zine Grey in 1926 recalls his amazement and delight at the stern fight he had in catching a mako shark. So great a tussle did the captive give him that he was at first convinced it was a swordfish, as he could not believe that a shark would fight so gamely. After playing it for some hours, he successfully landed the catch, and owing to the fact that sharks are regarded as the vermin of the sea, and are very cowardly if attacked, he would not call it a shark, but a mako —the Maori name. It is the gameness of the mako shark which has made it famous among sportsmen, and is not to be confused with other and possibly larger, but less game, species. Some New Zealand pamphlets containing records and illustrations are already on the way to South Africa for the information of the papers and sportsmen there, bpt these relate to swordfish and mako sharks. The dominion can, in addition, quote a case in which the Durban record mentioned is easily disposed of, and that by a South African, Commander Struban, who came to New Zealand for the fishing in 1926. Fishing beyond Russell, he hooked an enormous shark which, though not a mako, fought him for eight hours before he landed it, and towed the boat eight miles out to sea, almost out of sight of Cape Brett lighthouse. It was caught with the regular deep-sea fishing gear from a launch, and not from a breakwater, and was brought in on the launch.

So huge was the shark that it had to bq cut in two, before it

could be weighed, an operation which was performed by Colonel Bell, M.P., and the Government Publicity Officer, Mr H H Messenger. It had then disgorged a whole schnaoper % and several other whole fish, and, excluding these, the weight was 10351 b. It belonged to the species the Maoris call reremai.