Denizens of the Deep

by Philip Wylie

  A wading or swimming man has little to fear from a following or loitering ’cuda; the fish probably hasn’t anything better to do that day than to hang around watching how people behave. Goggle-fishermen and Bahama and West Indian natives (along with the guides, attendants and scientists who wade and swim in the barracuda-thronged “pens” of the American Museum of Natural History’s Bimini Lab) are accustomed to going about their business in the midst of ’cudas. They are usually careful not to make too much splash, careful not to chase, prod or excite their sabre-toothed associates; otherwise, they take no precautions.

  I have swum cheek-by-jowl with big barracudas, not entirely comfortably, but in no panic. I’ve seen Angelo, a native guide in Bimini, dive for a rod dropped overboard in twenty feet of ’cuda-infested water. No harm. Captain Eddie Wall, the famed skipper of the yacht Playmate, fears the sharp, slicing dorsal of the eight-inch surgeonfish more than the wolflike jaws of any ’cuda.

  It may be a ’cuda is more likely to hit a white man, simply because a colored person or a tan one resembles a water-soaked board or a stone, a white one looks like edible fish. Certainly the sudden splash of a hand (or an oar!) or perhaps of a swimmer’s arm, or of a dive, courts a hit more than quiet, steady wading, or swimming, or underwater swimming.

  Barracudas have no reputation (as do sharks) for attacking people “in trouble” or injured people. When they do bite, it isn’t because their victim is already in bad condition. And I have never heard of an authentic case of a gang or school of barracudas devouring anybody; with sharks, it’s different.

  What may be the case, in the rather uncommon matter of ’cuda bite, is this: an individual fish acts in an uncommon fashion. For fish, contrary to popular belief, are intensely individual. The brilliant and bold Dr. Kinsey, before he undertook to show the immense variation in human sex behavior, made some contributions to science in the matter of gall wasps. These lowly insects, he demonstrated, do not, as individuals, invariably and perfectly pursue the pattern laid down by their instincts. Now and again an individual gall wasp does something on his own, something not in the gall-wasp rule book. It may be the same with barracudas; here and there a single fish will hit a man when the next million of the same size in the same spot would let the man alone.

  Contrarywise, a common form of fish behavior is what possibly affords Florida’s bathers their main protection. It was found years ago, at the fabulous Marineland, that fish are very “property-conscious.” A little fish, arriving first at a good hole in the coral, may be permitted to live in it and hang around it by a much larger fish that would normally prey on the small one. There is a sort of “safe-at-home-base” custom at work here. Perhaps the ’cudas which come up on the beaches take the instinctual view that swimmers were there first and own the joint—that they are the intruders, the ones obliged to mind their manners. At any rate, if you swim at Miami Beach, you needn’t worry about ’cudas. They may be there; the danger from them is next to nil.

  Before the matter of the ’cuda’s danger is dropped for a brighter aspect of that interesting fish, one more item should be discussed. Great fear is often shown by novice anglers when a ’cuda is boated. His bad name and his manifestly wicked teeth cause persons to imagine he is capable of attack on dry land—of striking like a rattlesnake. Not so. Quite a few people have been scratched, raked, even badly cut or bitten by boated barracudas. But that is not because the fish went after them; it happens when they, carelessly, get part of an arm, a hand, or foot, or a finger between the ’cuda’s jaws. Naturally, if he has a chance, he’ll clamp down. Hooked, ashore, he may even gnash his teeth on general principles. So will any fish. Any fish with teeth or sharp jaws, sharp or pointed fins, or barbed gill-rakes offers the same hazard, exactly. John Smedberg, for many years mate on Harold Schmitt’s famed Neptune, wears a scar on his arm made when a wahoo (a kind of super-mackerel) threw a hook, jumped in the air, and came down, unfortunately, jaws-first against Smedberg’s arm.

  In boating a ’cuda it is necessary, merely, to take ordinary precautions. Not little ones. Gaff every big one. But don’t reach into his mouth to loosen the hook, or for any other reason. Don’t decide to test the sharpness of his teeth by feeling them while he’s still alive. Use pliers, a knife, a hard shake of the fish, a stick, or other remote-control means to free the hook. If you can’t free it, cut the leader and put on a new hook. Get the other back by surgery when the ’cuda is dead. Those rules apply for the little snappers as much as for tigers of the sea; snappers can bite, too!

  As a menace-to-man, the barracuda is to be reckoned with, even if his terrible reputation represents considerable exaggeration. However, it is as a sport or game fish that the ’cuda deserves a new reputation. In that category, he is to be admired and sought after.

  A barracuda will hit any known kind of bait that moves, and he will sometimes even take the bait of a still fisherman. Any size ’cuda will hit any bait of feasible size for him. Indeed, a ten-pound ’cuda will not hesitate, if in the mood, to slice at (and slice in two!) a six-pound bonefish trolled for blue marlin. A ’cuda will take a trout fly. A plug. A grasshopper. A feather. A trolling spoon. Practically anything else being trolled, including a piece of cloth, or even a bare, bright hook! He will hit a cut strip of bait, a live fish used as bait (especially that!) or a whole, deceased fish. He is exceedingly unparticular. And that, from the angler’s standpoint, is an advantage. Furthermore, his range is vast—from the great Gulf Stream to the lowliest salt backwater.

  When hooked, a ’cuda will often put on as good a show, pound for pound, as his far more famous game-fish colleagues. His runs are very fast, long, sweeping and extremely powerful. (Note the earlier account of one that pulled me halfway overboard against my will, balance, and muscle.) The barracuda is also among the fish which “bulldog.” A good-sized one, on light tackle, down twenty or thirty feet, slashing his head from side to side, will give the angler an astonishing kind of battle—a fast, sawing, yanking struggle to keep a tight line—and so keep the fish.

  The strike of a ’cuda is nearly always sensational. The fish may sometimes be seen, a streak, a whistling cut-water, racing toward the bait. The hit itself is an explosion. One is reminded of the trajectory and blast of a rocket shot by a bazooka. Sometimes the ’cuda leaps clear and falls on the bait. Generally, however, he hits and turns at the same instant, throwing geysers of water, often hurling himself half-clear in the process. And he is, as a rule, that prize among prizes, a leaping fish. I’ve caught many barracudas of twenty to thirty pounds that jumped more times than many of the sailfish I’ve taken. High, clear and frenzied, his dark back, white belly, black-spotted silver sides rise and somersault in the sunlight. Quite a sight!

  The caster, whether he uses a fly rod or plugs, will find the barracuda ideal. One does not have to go out into the rugged Gulf Stream for him. One doesn’t have even to search the sometimes rough waters of the reefs. Barracudas like bays, coves, island shores, salt ponds, salt creeks, the edges of salt marshes. A twenty-pounder may be spotted in a mere ten inches of water. And that’s another fascination of the breed: the angler can hunt for him, rowing, paddling, poling, wading—and holding his fire until he sees one of the submarine-shaped behemoths, of a suitable size for his gear, lying motionless in a spot where the fisherman can make a good cast and conduct the strategy of his scrap afterward, in selected territory. A man with a trout rod probably won’t have much luck if he casts his fly to a ten-pounder. But a man with a plug-casting outfit of the sort designed for black-bass fishing, if he has a hundred yards of ten-pound test line, could toss his Bobbling Benny, Dalmation Dipper, or Leaping Leona at a twenty-pounder in the expectation that, after a hair-raising conflict, he might win. Might not, too.

  In some ways, the ’cuda ought to be classed as a “prince” of light-tackle Florida game fishes for casters. His abundance, his voracity, the number of locales he patronizes, his edibility (of which more later) and particularly the versatile violence of the fight
he gives, should assure him a title. Unfortunately, his vices and alleged vices have hurt his name. And until quite recently he was not, as a rule, taken by methods suitable to his supporting nature. People have caught barracudas for generations, centuries. But they have caught them, usually, on heavy hand lines or on rods and rigs designed for down-boring reef fish such as amberjack and groupers. Only in the last ten years or so has any sizable number of people realized that sailfish-tackle itself should be light. And only in the same short period have anglers in numbers commenced to find out what they can do in the sea with the gear they’d hitherto used for steelheads, salmon, muskies, black bass, and pike.

  The ’cuda is, actually, a pikelike fish. A muskielike fish. A remote cousin of those breeds, with the added jet-propulsion needed for survival in the sea. But it is not necessary to go after him with such tackle as might be needed to hoist a hundred-pound grouper out of a coral cave. The hooked ’cuda won’t sound and hide; he’ll fight it out with you in the water, on or near the surface generally, and in the air. He, too, can weigh a hundred pounds, or more, but monsters of that size are rare and a fifty-pound ’cuda is a big one. You don’t need a tank to hunt pheasant; you don’t need a crane and a cable to catch barracudas. Light tackle is the thing—a nine-thread line will do for the biggest one you’ll ever hook in your life if you have yards enough of nine-thread on your reel. Say, five hundred yards, for that record breaker. And records, in the ’cuda category, are constantly being broken.

  Below are the current world records for the various tackle sizes recognized by the International Game Fish Association; the figures of each “class” represent maximum breaking strain of the line used:

  Barracuda records

  Women’s records

  How would you like to have one of those records? Well, what’s to hinder you? Pick out your favorite kind of tackle, your favorite style of fishing, take note of the present world record, spend your next vacation in Florida, the Bahamas, the West Indies, where barracudas of all sizes and vast appetite are numerous, and see if you can’t “knock off” the present holder of the world’s record in the class you’ve chosen. The biggest ones are yet to be caught! As for abundance—many times, around the base of one or another of the lighthouses along the Florida east coast, I’ve seen thousands upon thousands of ’cudas lying like schooled minnows—all facing the same way—torpedo-ominous, ranging from ten—to sixty-pounders!

  Barracudas are perfectly good to eat.

  That statement, I feel sure, will result in howls of protest unless it is amplified. And its amplification opens up still another mystery of one of the sea’s most baffling fish. Put it this way: There are people, known to me and including me, who have eaten barracudas, male and female, in various regions, at all different seasons, with enjoyment and no ill effect. There are others who claim to have been made violently ill by eating barracuda.

  Science isn’t entirely helpful here either. I have read a treatise by an ichthyologist in which it was suggested that possibly female ’cudas, when full of roe, generate a toxic substance as a protection against attack by other fish—which, maybe, makes some people ill. Other wizards point out that certain persons are allergic to all fish, or to certain fish. Hence those who claim to have been made ill by ’cuda meat may have been merely allergic. Another suggestion offered by year-round ’cuda-consumers is that if the meat makes anybody ill, it is because it is kept unrefrigerated too long and has spoiled. Thus (they hold) it is not the fact that they ate ’cuda, but spoiled fish, which causes their distress.

  The meat is good-looking, white, flaky, savory and tasty. It sometimes finds its way to fish markets and restaurants, under other names, of which “sea pike” is one (though “sea pike” may mean the equally excellent and utterly innocent robalo or snook), and I have never heard of an outbreak of “sea pike” poisoning.

  I myself suspect that most barracuda “poisoning” is psychosomatic—and often wonder why psychologists (hard-pressed to demonstrate their new knowledge) don’t refer oftener to the psychology of food.

  The matter of eating the barracuda is a case in point. If you give a man a “chicken sandwich” he will eat it with gusto, no doubt, and without harm. If you give him the same thing, a day later, and he eats it and you then both tell him and prove to him that both sandwiches were made of the meat of a rattlesnake, he may become very ill from his second sandwich even though the first didn’t upset him. That illness, obviously, rises from his mind, not his insides. So it may be with barracudas. People eating them unknowingly and told about it afterward, or people eating them nervously and worrying afterward, may make themselves ill.

  And they may worry, of course, for two “reasons”—because of the rumor that the meat has sometimes been toxic, or because of revulsion over eating the meat of anything that “eats” people. The latter sentiment, of course, is rather silly, on two counts: a ’cuda that has had a bite of genus homo is very, very rare; and chickens and pigs, to name just two popular food animals, do the same, on occasion, if given the chance.

  Indeed, the cases of human pig bite, together with injury or death due to it, probably outnumber the ’cuda disasters a thousand to one. Yet people don’t usually grow pale in the presence of porkers. And millions of farmers enter pigpens calmly every day. Only once in a great while does a pig attack a person.

  So my net testimony is pro-’cuda. The barracuda is a handsome, gallant, game and food fish which, on rare occasion, has taken advantage of a man invading his element. This, in turn, has given him an overblown reputation for aggression.

  People have been stabbed while boating sailfish; they have had their boats wrecked by marlin; they have had their arms and legs broken by tarpon that jumped aboard or were taken aboard too soon. But nobody holds a shuddersome view of sailfish, marlin or tarpon owing to that!

  After twenty years of swimming over the reefs and in the open seas where the Great Barracuda lives, after catching thousands by a dozen methods, and after the same number of years devoted to beach and surf activities in Florida and the Bahamas, I can testify that I never saw a ’cuda even make a pass at a person. I am convinced that their “menacing” way of lurking about is merely a manifestation of curiosity. And I have come to suspect that at least some of the damage attributed to barracudas has been the work of sharks, even small sharks, that hit hard and rush away, showing only a flash of white.

  But I could be wrong. So I observe a few rules. I don’t stick my hands or feet suddenly into tropical salt water, as I do into fresh. I don’t dive, except in pools and along beaches where swimming is a constant event. I take care, when a ’cuda is boated, to avoid his jaws. And I never put my hand in his mouth unless and until I am certain he is dead. If a really big ’cuda comes in on a beach where I’m swimming, and hangs around, I get the kids and others out and throw rocks at him till he beats it. Sometimes, instead of rocks, I cast a bass plug, in which case I sometimes remove that ’cuda from the sea for good and all. I eat ’cuda unhesitatingly, though the choice of food in tropical seas is so varied that a day’s fishing usually provides species I prefer to barracuda.

  Respect, rather than fear, is indicated by this sporty fellow with the bad name. If you were to watch the students of marine biology, at the University of Miami—young men and pretty girls—year after year don diving helmets and descend to the coral gardens to make first-hand surveys, you would be reassured about ’cudas. For as the students stand, sit and plod about amongst the weird scenes—the lunar rocks, the purple and yellow fans, the swarms of fishes bright as Christmas-tree balls—you’d see the ’cudas, too, hanging around, watching, following, retreating. Not bothering anybody. Perhaps they’re just studying terrestrial biology. Who knows?

  And that’s a question which arises wherever the sea is concerned, or the fishes in it: Who knows? That’s why the quest goes on and why, perhaps, some day a more informed amateur naturalist than I may be able to tell exactly why it is that, once in a great while, a ’cuda bites a
man, and perhaps why sometimes a bite of ’cuda makes a man sick. Until then, the sportsman is safe in dealing with the barracuda for what he is: the biggest, ruggedest, flashiest and fightingest pike in the water world.

  A marlin is a fighting fish

  All marlin are mean and most marlin are insane. They are big fish. In some branches of the family, a thousand pounds is merely a respectable adulthood. Apparently no one, fishing fairly and squarely with sports tackle, has taken a marlin of that size in the Atlantic; but commercial fishermen off Cuba, with deep sets and ropes, do it as a matter of course. And several famed sportsmen have broken the “G”-mark, lately, in the Pacific, off Chile.

  The marlin looks like a heavy-duty sailfish—sans sail. A thicker, huskier animal, gun-metal above, chrome-silver below, ornamented with iridescent blues and lavenders, beefed up around the shoulders and possessed of a wilder eye than any bull. The sailfish’s bill is a rapier. The marlin’s is a policeman’s billy with the added feature of a point like that of an ice ax. But it was natural that, after never-satisfied man had learned to catch the pinwheeling sail, he would raise his sights to see what could be done with rod and reel in the matter of marlin.

  There are two breeds in the Atlantic—the big blue and his nephew, the smaller white marlin. Anyone who has hooked and boated the nephew will know he has been tangled in the championship class. And anyone who has even hooked a blue will remember what happened afterward with somewhat the same awe and alarm that he might recall participating in a train wreck.