1941 DEEPSEA FISHING off Chile Peru magazine article Marlin Giant Squid Humboldt

Description

Selling is a 1941 magazine article about:
Deep-sea Fishing off Chile, Peru
Title: Fighting Giants of the Humboldt
Author: DAVID D. DUNCAN
Quoting the first page “For years there have been records of tremendous swordfish being caught on rod and reel off the coast of Chile. Other and less substantiated reports told of huge- billed fish sighted at rare intervals and even brought up tangled in the lines of commercial fishermen off the shores of northern Peru.
To collect and study specimens of these fighting giants of the Humboldt Current, the American Museum of Natural History authorized our expedition, headed by Michael Lerner of New York. The Humboldt, a mighty ocean stream, flows northward from the Antarctic and pushes close to the west coast of South America before swinging west and losing itself in the outer Pacific.
As we stood on the wharf at Talara, Peru, shielding our eyes from the glaring equatorial sun and looking out beyond the bay into the stretches of the Pacific, the magnitude of our task struck home. What chance had we of even sighting a fin in this tremendous, little- known expanse of water, much less gaffing the giant and bringing it back to the laboratory?
Little did I suspect that not only the broadbill but also one of the most fearsome creatures of the sea, the giant Pacific squid, would be successfully caught with hook and line.
We were seven: Michael and Helen Lerner, both experienced deep-sea anglers; Francesca LaMonte, Associate Curator of Ichthyology of the American Museum of Natural History: two seasoned Florida fishing captains, Bill Hatch and Douglas Osborne; Irving Hartley, ace movie cameraman; and the writer, who served as photographer and interpreter.
The quest began the morning after our arrival at Talara and continued for weeks with a routine nearly always the same. From dawn to dusk every day we combed the seemingly empty expanse of ocean.
Gentle and tranquil during the early-morning hours, the sea responded to the noontime change from an offshore to an inshore breeze by buffeting unmercifully our two 30-foot out- rigged launches. Each day saw our little craft in some different part of the Pacific, all hands on topside and searching continually for the set of fins, one behind the other, which would mean that at last we had sighted a broadbill.
"But this is April; you have come too late," many of our new friends told us. "Now, if you could have got here earlier, say for the calm days of January... "
Yes, we knew; we should have found fins cutting the surface in veritable regattas.
"Of course none of us has ever landed one of these swordfish, but the gringos are smart; so perhaps they will show us poor fishermen how it can be done."
The tone was courteous, but some hidden inflection made our captains stay out at sea longer than ever during the days that followed. They swore by Neptune to put a broadbill on the dock.
So went the days. And with them was born the thought that perhaps the reports of monstrous fins in the Humboldt were more fiction than fact. To be sure, we saw fins, plenty of them; but they were not sported by the right kind of fish. Our first alarm came one day as we were all settling down to our regular picnic-style lunch. The crash of feet on the roof overhead brought us to our knees. "Aleta, aleta!" rang in our ears, as both the pilot and the lookout shouted at the same time.
Mike and Doug looked at me for translation. "Fins!" I cried.
Off their knees and heading for the roof, they suddenly stopped short, for apologetically from above came the word tiburon, the one bit of Spanish they recognized-"shark."
Another time we were all on topside, saying nothing, but each concentrating on a given section of horizon. We were 40 miles from land. Suddenly, as one, we all turned to look at a slight movement on the surface several hundred feet off our bow. And even as we watched, a mammoth fin rose out of the depths, closely followed by a second, several yards off to the left.
"Ave Maria, the champion!" gasped Juan, our Peruvian. Yes, to be sure, it was the champion, the granddaddy, the biggest of them all. But wait, what was that first fin doing? "Look! It's bending, it's curling up, it just can't! "
Realization dawned simultaneously upon us all. We had intruded upon a giant manta ray in the privacy of its sunbath. Lolling upon the surface, the huge bat-shaped creature lifted one wingtip and then the other in lazy at- tempts to dislodge small parasitic remoras... "
7” x 10”, 28 pages, 28 B&W photos plus map
These are pages from an actual 1941 magazine. No reprints or copies.
41C4
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