A Family Affair

This Shark Catch Was A Family Affair

DOUG ASKEW tells a fish story It was some years ago, certainly, but the memory of that >hark I caught is with me yet. And why wouldn’t it be? It was >uch an unusual catch, apart from the fact that I deserve some hanks for all the trouble I saved those people on the Sydney )eaches. I mean, if I hadn’t caught this huge Noah’s Ark in he New Hebrides, who knows but she may have decided to ake a summer cruise down to Bondi and scare the living day ights out of a lot of bikini-clad citizens!

IT all happened back in 1934 on a nice calm Sunday morning, when the old Makamho was anchored off Aoba Island in the New Hebrides. By that year the Makaviho was no longer the pride of BP’s fleet, and she had been relegated to the task of picking up copra and shell around the New Hebrides outports, and brinerine it to Vila, where she connected with the Morinda from Sydney. She was, in fact, just a floating trade store.

When she left Vila every six weeks, part of her rations were half-a dozen live sheep from Erromanga, which were kept aft and butchered as required on the way around.

On this particular Sunday morn ing I was leaning idly over the rail when the Chinese cook came along and hurled a bloodstained sheep skin over the side. This evoked little interest beyond the natural thoughts of roast mutton and chops as a change of diet.

Then I saw this huge shape appear from the depths.

Some Quick Action

Without stopping to think I grabbed a long bamboo pole with a hook lashed to the end and smartly hauled the sheepskin back on board.

It was a sort of reflex action which no doubt peeved the shark.

While the Chinaman’s eyes stuck out like a crabs I sighted a great big shark-hook attached to a length of heavy chain hanging in the rigging! I have never seen a hook like it before or since—must have been two feet long and hand forged.

It was the daddy of all hooks, and just ready to hand at the right moment!

I passed it through the sheepskin and tossed the lot back over the side, and blow me down, the shark was practically sitting up waiting for it. Without hesitation, it swallowed the lot. And the battle was on!

Big and all as this monstrous shark was, it didn’t have Buckley’s

chance of getting away from such a magnificent hook plus chain and swivel, mads fast to a stout manila rope.

By this time everyone on board was in the act, and as the line went out to its limit we would all grab hold and haul it back in again, and then off it would go once more!

This went on all that hot Sunday morning. Finally the shark gave up the struggle and we pulled it in to the side of the Makamho.

The problem then was to get it on board and this was solved by the First Mate, Gordon Howe (who is now a Torres Strait pilot I believe) casually sliding down a rope and standing on the shark while he arranged a bowline round its great tail!

What a Monster

The rest was easy—we bent the line round the winch and up it came. Not one of us had ever seen such a monster I guess! We stood around while the boat’s crew cut it open. Out tumbled a tremendous liver followed by an avalanche of young sharks, about two feet long, and all very much alive —42 of them!

We threw one over the side and it promptly swam away. So the crew took the others for kai. After tak ing pictures, the body was swung over the side and cut loose. It must have been really ravenous that shark because there was nothing else in its stomach.

It was a pity that we couldn’t weigh it. But perhaps some one mathematically inclined could figure it out. Length 17 ft 2 in. by 11 ft 6 in. girth—plus the family.

Here's the author with proof of that far-off shark catch! You can see the chain at the end of the giant hook.