They knew that the most dangerous moment lay ahead, as the shark got closer to the boat.Īfter more than one hour of recovering line, they saw the shark 60 to 80 feet under the skiff - even then, it looked big. One of the fishermen recovered line while others prepared a harpoon.
They knew then that the fish was tired of pulling the extra weight. The fishermen knew that the palangres would increase the resistance to the hooked shark.Īfter many hours of following the palangres that were being pulled by the shark, the line began to surface. The palangres were used for swordfish fishing at night. They had palangres with them, these are small wood rafts used to lay many lines in the water from one raft to the other. The shark began taking line almost immediately but the men knew that no human hands could stop such a fish. The shark passed the boat again and swallowed the bait whole. One of the men gently tossed the bait in the deep blue water. They hooked the half tuna in a shark hook that was followed by a wire leader and by thousands of feet of old silk rope. It was perhaps a moment of fear, however catching this shark would make the pay for many days at sea. They looked at each other with uncertainty and disbelief. The smell of bait and chum in the water brought the shark closer to the skiff, it passed parallel to the boat and the men saw that it was much bigger than their boat. For bait they used half of a tuna that was bitten by a smaller shark while fishing the day before. Immediately, they tied several lines together. This shark was bigger than all other sharks that they had ever seen or caught.
In great excitement, the fishermen tossed bait and chum in the water to keep the shark near. One of the fishermen exclaimed out loud “No wonder there are no fish around!” They knew it was a great white shark. Although the fishermen were experienced shark fishermen, they were surprised and left speechless by the size of the fin cutting through the water. a large shark fin appeared only a few feet way from the skiff. Sometimes you can even hear fishermen in other boats when a fish is caught. Usually, one can see the splash of a fish that is being caught by another boat. Other boats that were not too far away seemed to have the same luck. That particular day the fishermen wished for a large blue marlin, it was considered one of the best paid fish.Īfter a couple of hours, not a single fish had shown interest in the fresh ballyhoos that were lying motionless in the water. Ballyhoo is the blue marlin’s favorite bait. One of the fishermen put bait in the water, as he did every morning. Before sunrise, the fishermen already had sailed about three miles, just to the edge of the Gulf Stream, where the current is strong enough for large pelagic fish to abound. That day, although it was a typical day in June, there was an eerie feeling among the fishermen.
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My father tells the story and it feels that I’m reliving a scene from the movie “Jaws.” As my father tells the story, it was a calm June day when six fishermen of Cojimar sailed out to sea in their 14-foot wooden skiff to fish for tuna, sharks, dorado and other species. The fishermen who caught it called it “El Monstruo de Cojimar.” It was caught in the Gulf of Mexico waters, only a few miles from the shanty fishermen town of Cojimar, Cuba, the same town where famous American writer Ernest Hemingway wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Old Man and the Sea”.Ī friend of my father was one of six fishermen who participated in the hunt.
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