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Updated: June 24, 2025
Also it brought us to five o'clock. Five hours!... I began to have queer sensations aches, pains, tremblings, saggings. Likewise misgivings! About this period I determined to see how close to the boat I could pull him. I worked. The word "worked" is not readily understood until a man has tried to pull a big broadbill close to the boat. I pulled until I saw stars and my bones cracked.
I struck at least a dozen times with all my might while the line was going off the reel. The swordfish was moving ponderously. Presently he came up with a great splash, showing his huge fins, and then the dark, slender, sweeping sword. He waved that sword, striking fiercely at the leader. Then he went down. It was only at this moment I realized I had again hooked a broadbill. Time, ten forty-five.
But let any fisherman who has nerve see and feel a big swordfish on his line, and from that moment he is obsessed. Why, a tarpon is child's play compared to holding a fast swordfish. It is my great ambition now to catch a broadbill. That would completely round out my fishing experience. And I shall try. But I doubt that I will be so fortunate. It takes a long time.
This made me begin to work hard. Yet, notwithstanding, I had no hope of capturing the fish. It was only experience. Captain Dan kept saying: "Well, you wanted to hook up with a broadbill! Now how do you like it?" He had no idea I would ever land him.
He quit, same as he quit the first day out, when I hooked the broadbill and the reel froze. "Disqualified fish, even if you ketch him which you won't," he said, dejectedly. "Crack goes thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed my brother. "Sure is funny, brother, how you can decimate good money into the general atmosphere!"
After this fish freed himself he was so mad that he charged the boat repeatedly. Boschen fought a big broadbill for eleven hours. And during this fight the swordfish sounded to the bottom forty-eight times, and had to be pumped up; he led the boat almost around Catalina Island twenty-nine miles; and he had gotten out into the channel, headed for Clemente, when he broke away.
Coming back the wind sprang up and we had a following sea. It was fine to watch the green-and-white rollers breaking behind us. The tuna appear to be working farther and farther off the east end. Marlin swordfish have showed up off the east end. Three caught yesterday and one to-day. I have not yet seen a broadbill, and fear none are coming this year. August 8th. Went off east end.
We have yet to see him work upon a broadbill or a big tuna; and that is something Captain Dan and I are anticipating with much pleasure and considerable doubt. August 31st dawned fine and cool and pleasant, rather hazy, with warm sun and smooth sea.
He will charge the boat, and nothing but the churning propeller will keep him from ramming the boat. There were eight broadbill swordfish hooked at Avalon during the summer, and not one brought to gaff. This is an old story. Only two have been caught to date. They are so powerful, so resistless, so desperate, and so cunning that it seems impossible to catch them.
As many as ninety boats have been counted on this fishing-ground at daybreak during the season. Three summers in Catalina waters I had tried persistently to capture my first broadbill swordfish; and so great were the chances against me that I tried really without hope. It was fisherman's pride, I imagined, rather than hope that drove me.
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