AN EXCITING EXPEDITION.

Western Star, 5 February 1924, Page 3

AN EXCITING EXPEDITION.

SEA MONSTERS CAUGHT, j

Leviathans evidently still exist in the deep waters. Mr F. A, Mitchell Hedges has caught specimens of him in fishing expeditions in the Pacific and Caribbean Seas —monstrous, maneating fish that would be incredible if he had not illustrated his exciting accounts of ‘ Battles with Giant Fish ’ with photographs of Iffs captures. The tall tales, of the average fisherman sound like a child’s boastings beside these true stories of sea monsters which, when caught’, simply towed along the twenty-ton, motor yacht and fisherman. ; The whale is evidently a gentle and inoffensive creature compared with the sharks and swordfish with which Mr Hedges and Lady Richmorid Brown—who illustrates the record—did battle.

When Mr Hedges first went fishing, ill these waters he used a more or less ordinary' rod and line. Veffy soon, from his experience with sharks and other sea monsters, he realised that nothing made by the ordinary fishing, tackle maker would hold the fish he had seen, and lost, and the rstill bigger fish which evidently existed. /

So he had new tackle made—at Balboa .dockyard; hooks of half-inch stepl, with the points and barbs filed to a razor-like sharpness (“ the mouth of all jlhese great fish is like iron”), and half-inch Manila rope for line. The ro-3 was to be dispensed with, As lie explained to the astonished people who executed his order: “No man ‘in this world can handle these big fish himself, and my idea. is. to have the line fastened to the capstan, and when once I hook one of these great fish to- let it‘tow the' boat until exhausted; then . . . we’ll work

it .alongside and finally despatch it with a high velocity rifle and expanding bullets.” —Large Sharks for Bait-. The new tackle was first used to catch sand sharks —for bait. The landing of two monsters which weighed between, 2601 b and 2801 b apiece wa& a. sufficiently exciting business ; but Mr Hedges was after still bigger game, which lie thought might be tempted by a bait consisting of an entire halfgide of saiid nil ark. Something big took the bait; something big enough to pull the yacht along ’in its , efforts to 1 escape. They started to- try to get the fish' in. It did not 'show much' fight—it just went oil. At laet it was brought to the surface, so <that the fishers could see their capture, with the Hook firmly fixed in its lower jaw. ■ Two bullets fired into the base of the head merely fish Jnto fury; but after half an !^t struggling • it 'Avas despatched . with., a third bullet, towed inshore, :inff deft in the shallows until tho falling tide should reveal exactly what it was. —Ugly as the Devil.— ' , It proved to l be a shovel-nosed shark, ‘‘though far and away larger than gny I had yet seen, or t expected to see:’’ It measured 14ft 9in, and it weighed (though one is a little puzzled to know how Mr Hedges arrived at this) 1,4601 b. This catch encouraged 4 the fishers to 'Expeditions. They soon caught something which, by its feel on the rope line, was still bigger. Tremendous efforts brought to the s#rfa,ce a horrible creature, which caused the crew to declare . that it was the devil, and to implore Mr Hedges to cut the line. Mr'Hedges refused to be intimidated even by the devil, which presently resolved itself in a horrible mass on the top of the water—the largest hammer-head shark Mr Hedges had ever Been, and “hn ocular demonstration' of grotesque litte' existing to-day as it did in the Meso-i zoic period.” —A Still Greater Monster.--

It took tho full strength of sixteen people to haul this shark up the beach above high-water mark; and then, large as it was —the width of its hammer-shaped head was 4ft 6in—r it showed evidence pf the existence of still larger and more terrible sea monsters. ! ■ '

“ Almost in the centre on, either side of the fish a frightful scar show:ed, which the most unversed person could see was caused by some gigantic monster seizing the hammer-head across the middle. One. can only conjecture what the span of jaw of this opponent must have been, but it was certainly very much larger than the fish we had captured.” A , 29ft sawfish ; which Mn Hedges captured with the harpoon gave him a demonstration, before he could shoot it, of tlie way its terrible weapon is used.

“ With tremendous force it struck alternately to right and left with, a rapid, slashing motion, when, turning ■slightly sideways, ..it drove hip and down in the same ilahher; ' then, curving the tail and .saw toward each other so that the body was shaped like, a bow, it snapped straight oiit' with tremendous force. Had our boat been within striking distance one blow from the tail or saw would have spelt disaster.” > ’ —A Terrible Duel.—An even more tolling (demonstration of ’ the power of the sawfish was provided by a duel between a sawfish and a 14ft shark. When tlie two met neither appeared at first to take any notice of the other. Then the shark “ suddenly shot in at right angles toward the great sawfish, and before tlie sawfish could save itself tore a great chunk out of its side. ' “ The attacker turned to escape, hut too late—the terrible weapon of the wounded leviathan smashed round. From where we were we could distinctly hear the thud as it struck tlie shark, almost severing it. Again the blow was repeated, tlie second being even more violent than the first. The shark must have been killed instantly.” . . Flap: “John says lie worships me-' Flip: <r An idol remark.”