Jim Spurling, Fisherman Part 12

"And there's a good job done!" exclaimed Jim, as the last buoy floated astern. "Here's to a ten-pound hake on every hook!"

"Do you often catch as many as that?" inquired Percy, innocently.

Jim laughed.

"Hardly! We'll be more than lucky if we get a tenth of that number."

Day was now breaking. The night wind had died out and, save for the long, oily swells, the sea was absolutely calm. Jim started the engine and swung the _Barracouta_ round, and they ran leisurely back to the other end of the trawl, meanwhile eating the lunch Filippo had put up for them. Soon they were close to the first red buoy.

"Now for business!" said Jim.

He stepped into the dory.

"Guess you know enough about automobiles, Whittington, to handle this engine. Keep the sloop close by and watch me haul. You can take your turn when I get tired."

Gaffing the buoy aboard, he pulled up the anchor, and soon was hauling in the trawl over the wooden roller on the starboard bow. Percy watched with all his eyes. This was real fishing.

As the line came in Jim coiled it smoothly down into an empty tub on a stand in the bow. The first three hooks were skinned clean.

"Something down there, at any rate," he commented.

The trawl sagged heavily.

"First fish, and a good-sized one! Pretty logy, though! Feels like a hake!"

Percy stared down into the blackish-green water. Out of its gloomy depths rose an indistinct shadow, gradually a.s.suming definite shape. A blunt, lumpy head with big, staring eyes broke the surface; two long streamers hung from beneath the lower jaw.

Jim reached for his gaff.

"Hake! And a good one, too!"

Striking the sharp iron hook through the fish's gills, he lifted the slimy gray body over the gunwale, unhooked it, and slung it, floundering, over the kid-board into the empty s.p.a.ce amidships.

"Fifteen-pounder! Wish we could get a hundred more like him! Hullo!

Who's next?"

The newcomer had a huge reddish-brown head with bulging cheeks; his blotched body, adorned with wicked spines, tapered slimly off to an inconspicuous tail.

"Horn-pout! Toad sculpin! Bah! Get out!"

Jim slat the fish disgustedly off, and he sculled slowly downward. Two more bare hooks. Then three hake in succession, the largest not over five pounds. On the next line hung a writhing, twisting shape about eighteen inches long. With a wry face Jim held the thing up for Percy's inspection.

"Slime eel! He's tied the ganging into knots and thrown off his jacket.

Look here!"

He stripped from the line a handful of tough, stringy slime like a ma.s.s of soft soap.

"How's that for an overcoat! They always throw it off when they get hung up on a trawl."

Flinging the stuff away with a grimace, he rinsed his hand and cut off the ganging with his knife.

"No use trying to unhook that fellow!"

Fathom after fathom of trawl came in over the roller. The flapping, dying heap in the center of the dory enlarged steadily. Jim was spattered with scales from head to foot, and drenched with water from the splashing tails. He stopped for a moment to rest.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Now you see what oil-clothes are good for," said he. "I'll give you your chance in a little while."

Percy had kept the _Barracouta_ near by as Jim pulled the dory along the trawl. He could watch the process very well from the sloop, and he was by no means anxious for a personal experience with it. It looked too much like hard work. He made no reply to Jim's offer.

Refreshed by his rest, the latter resumed hauling. Up came a little cl.u.s.ter of yellow plums, as large as small walnuts, each on a stem six inches long, attached to a brownish bunch of roots.

"n.i.g.g.e.r-heads! Always grow on rocky bottom; nicest kind of place for fish. Trawl must have run over a patch of ledge. We're likely to pick up something here besides hake. What's this?"

A heavy fish appeared, hanging motionless on the next ganging. Jim gave a shout.

"Haddock! Twelve-pounder. Swallowed the hook and worried himself to death. Drowned!"

"Drown a fish!" jeered Percy.

"Sure you can, any kind of fish, if you only keep his mouth open. If this fellow hadn't taken the bait in so deep he'd have been liable to break away. Fishermen call 'em 'b.u.t.ter-mouths,' their flesh is so tender; under jaw's the only place where a hook will hold to lift 'em by. See his red lips, and that black streak down each side. And look at these two black spots, big as silver dollars, on his shoulders; that's where they say the devil got him between his thumb and forefinger, but couldn't hold on."

It was now not far from four o'clock. The sun, rising straight from the water, lifted his fiery red disk above the eastern horizon. It was a strange sight to Percy. The sunrises he had seen could almost be numbered on the fingers of one hand. He yawned. The novelty of trawling was wearing off; he wished himself back in his hard bunk.

A heavy, chunky fish of an old-gold color, with an almost continuous line of fins, was the next habitant of the sea to cross the dory gunwale. Jim held him up to show Percy.

"Look at this cusk! He likes rocky bottom as well as a haddock. He's used to deep water, and if you start him up quick his stomach will blow out of his mouth like a bladder. I've seen 'em so plenty that they floated a trawl on top of water for half a mile."

Seven or eight small haddock and cusk, and then once more the trawl began to yield hake.

"Back again on muddy bottom," said Jim. "What d'you say to trying your hand at it?"

Percy agreed, but without enthusiasm. He had seen enough to realize that pulling a trawl was no sinecure. By means of a fish-fork Jim pitched his catch aboard the sloop. The first tub of trawl was now full. He transferred it to the _Barracouta_ and set an empty tub in its place.

"You'll find fishing is no bed of roses," he remarked as he dropped down into the standing-room.

"I believe you," answered Percy, with conviction.

He started to get aboard the dory.

"Not there!" warned Jim. "Forward of the kid-board!"

The caution came too late. Percy stepped into the slippery pen from which the fish had just been pitched; unluckily, too, he was not careful to plant his weight amidships. The dory, overbalanced to starboard, careened suddenly, and he fell sprawling on the slimy bottom. Jim could not repress an exclamation of impatience.

"Why didn't you step where I told you?"

"I didn't think she'd tip so easy," retorted Percy, angrily.