Sharks: In Search of the Big One

I agreed to go shark fishing in the same way people agree to have lunch with someone they never expect to see again. Saying “yes” is sometimes an easier and consequently more final form of saying “no.”

We arrived at the 30-foot California Dawn out of Balboa Harbor at sunrise. There were 12 of us, in twos, threes and fours, all in various stages of expectation. The camaraderie among fishermen begins with thoughts of the strike and the severity of the fight.

We had heard the stories. There were big ones out there: 20 to 25 feet, 800 to 900 pounds, a six-hour fight only to lose it at the end. These stories were repeated at the dock with increasing anticipation. I had been fairly silent until that point, my silence I’m sure taken for confidence, before I decided to venture a few questions. What if you lose your pole? Who takes out the hook? I could establish myself in the group as easily as the others.

Some seafaring preconceptions were dispelled the moment we boarded the boat. Lee, the seasoned captain of these dangerous missions, judging from his visage and homework, was a history major at an advanced high school.

Jim, his equally young deckhand, could have passed for a choirboy’s younger brother. Jim’s looks were deceiving. It would turn out that he liked to wrestle a shark to submission, mano-a-fin, before taking a baseball bat to its head.

The first order of ship’s business, for those of us who didn’t have our own gear, was to outfit the rod and reel. Everything about the equipment appeared mean, serious, angry. The rod was thick, maybe 6 feet tall, with the flexibility of pipe. The reel was the size of a grapefruit, with 1,000 feet of 40-pound line.

And the hook was frightening. It was 4 inches of steel, the barb half an inch long, with a steel wire leader. We were given two each because sharks have been known to strip the hook or bite through the leader. I was relieved to learn that most of the fishermen didn’t know how to tie the line to the leader, and was assured when Jim performed this duty with patience and humor. If there was risk in this adventure, at least it would be well-managed and ultimately deferred.

As the boat headed out of the harbor, we searched for our sea legs and our favorite spots about the boat from which to cast our lines. Mine was where the railing was highest--thigh-high--to provide the greatest barrier to being pulled overboard.

If the Big One could smell fear, I would have the catch of the day. Our objective was a bank some 16 miles out to sea. The engine churned through the waves. The air had a penetrating briskness. To add to our sense of oneness against the elements, a sudden squall brought all, except Jim, into the tiny galley. Along one wall were photographs of prized shark catches. Over the photos, a .22-caliber rifle.

Ninety minutes out to sea, far beyond the distance I knew I could swim if the boat were attacked and sank, Jim began sopping chum from a 50-gallon drum into the ocean. Chum is a sort of bouillabaisse of fish parts and organic debris which is supposed to send flesh-eating sharks into a frenzy.

Jim dumped chum in the boat’s wake for a mile before Lee cut the motor and told us to cast our lines. We then drifted back along the chum line, waiting for whatever terror we had stirred from the deep. That was the procedure. Lay a chum line and drift against it. Lay a chum line, drift against it.

“Loll” turned out to be the active verb of the day. And it became a beautiful day. The sun shone brightly. The water in the middle of the channel was a magnificently clear aquamarine. We sat and talked and lolled, drifting, reeling in, laying chum. We laid enough chum to qualify as an oil spill, and drifted for half the day before I hooked the first of two sharks caught on the boat.

I was reeling in, thinking of England, when--as the hook was about to reach the water surface--a six-foot mako came from under the boat and took the bait. The reel let out its characteristic whine. Jim instantly appeared and in one smooth movement grabbed the rod, saw the shark beneath us, snatched a gaff, and hauled the fish on board.

This is what we had waited for, had paid our money for: the catch, the fight of a man-eating shark. But not on the boat at ankle level. Chomping at the air with long, jagged teeth, the shark’s swimming motion enabled it to scurry about the deck. In the boat’s confines, that meant one direction--toward us.

It could have been the first case of people jumping into the ocean to escape a shark attack. People were scrambling to get to the other side of the boat, and I was first among them. Unfortunately, I was still attached to the other end of the line. I don’t know how many people I entangled with my line and impaled with my pole as I squeezed to the front of the crowd. Grace under pressure. Wide-eyed apologies between clenched teeth.

Jim grabbed the shark behind its pectoral fins to divert its direction. This was part sport for him, part show, and entirely crazy. A false step or reach would have meant his hand. But it was the ritual necessary, I think, to supply the adrenaline for what was to follow.

If a shark has a psyche, it doesn’t include being attacked. The whomp of the baseball bat on its head evinced only a look of surprise on the shark’s face. It took several hits to stun it before Jim could unsheath his knife and eviscerate it. I had what I had hoped for: my own man-eating shark, my own shark story.

There is a questionable morality about hunting when one’s life and livelihood don’t depend on it. At the point one acknowledges being an omnivore, guidelines arise.

We had been advised before we set out that a shark would be killed only if it was to be eaten, and only the mako and the Great White were good eating. The others would be thrown back.

I was going to eat my catch, however eerie it would be to squeeze lemon on something that would just as soon eat me. And these were not baby seals. Even eviscerated, the shark continued its motions of attack. (Indeed, skinned and filleted, the steaks twitched when touched.) Nonetheless, a pall descended over us after witnessing the savage physicality of the shark’s subjection.

We quietly set about our business of drifting and casting with a sober respect for the enterprise. One other mako was caught that day, its fin snagged as the line was being reeled. Two hours later, we headed back to port.

Would I shark fish again?

Yes. It’s good sport and decent eating, like halibut with too much oregano. I no longer believe I would be pulled overboard if I caught the Big One. Before I lost the pole, I would release the drag on the reel.

Would I do anything differently? I’d bring a book, a beach chair and a bat.