Free The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger

be fooled by a mackerel hung on a big steel hook.
    Swordfish are not gentle animals. They swim through schools of fish slashing wildly with their swords, trying to eviscerate as many as possible; then they feast. Swordfish have attacked boats, pulled fishermen to their deaths, slashed fishermen on deck. The scientific name for swordfish is Xiphias gladius; the first word means "sword" in Greek and the second word means "sword" in Latin. "The scientist who named it was evidently impressed by the fact that it had a sword," as one guidebook says.
    The sword, which is a bony extension of the upper jaw, is deadly sharp on the sides and can grow to a length of four or five feet. Backed up by 500 pounds of sleek, muscular fish, the weapon can do quite a bit of damage. Swordfish have been known to drive their swords right through the hulls of boats. Usually this doesn't happen unless the fish has been hooked or harpooned, but in the nineteenth century a swordfish attacked a clipper ship for no apparent reason. The ship was so badly damaged that the owner applied to his insurer for compensation, and the whole affair wound up in court.
    Grand Banks swordfish spawn in the Caribbean and then edge northward during the summer months, heading for the cold, protein-rich waters off Newfoundland. During the daylight hours the fish work their way down the water column to depths of 3,000 feet, chasing squid, hake, cod, butterfish, bluefish, mackerel, menhaden, and bonito, and at night they follow their prey back up to the surface. Their young hatch with scales and teeth, but no sword, and have been described as "wistful-looking." Although all manner of fish feed on larval swordfish, only mako, sperm whale, and killer whale attack them when they're fully grown. Mature swordfish are considered to be one of the most dangerous game fish in the world and have been known to fight nonstop for three or four hours. They have sunk small boats in their struggles. Sport fishermen need live bait on heavy steel hooks that are secured to 500-pound test steel wire or chain to catch swordfish; they also need a "numbing club" on board to beat the fish senseless. Commercial fishermen, who are in the business of avoiding the thrill of fishing, use different methods entirely. They hang a thousand baited hooks on forty miles of monofilament and then crawl into bed to get some sleep.
    Bob Brown doesn't know when Billy makes his first set because Billy hates talking to him on the radio. He's been known to leave messages with Linda Greenlaw in order not to talk to Bob Brown; he's been known to fake static on the single sideband. But it's reasonable to assume that on the night of September 27th, Tyne's making his first set of the trip. The boat's outriggers are boomed out and two steel plates, known as "birds," hang by chain down into the water to provide stability. The ocean has already settled into the galloping darkness of mid-autumn, and the wind has swung around to the southeast. The surface of the ocean is cross-hatched with changing weather.
    Baiting has all the glamour of a factory shift and considerably more of the danger. The line is spooled on a big Lindegren drum that sits under the shelter of the whaleback on the port side of the boat. It crosses diagonally over the deck, passes through an overhead block, and then bends straight back toward the stern. A steel ring guides it over the rail and into the water. That's where the baiters stand. There's a bait table on top of the stern rail—basically a wooden well with squid and mackerel in it—and a leader cart on either side. The leader carts are small drums spooled with hundreds of lengths of seven-fathom line, called gangions. Each gangion has a number ten hook at one end and a stainless steel snap on the other.
    The baiter reaches behind him and takes a gangion from his backup man, who's peeling them off the leader cart one at a time. The baiter impales a squid or mackerel onto the hook, snaps the gangion