Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1896 — Catching Sharks Near Hawall. [ARTICLE]

Catching Sharks Near Hawall.

Lieutenant Coyne and some fifteen members of Company E Marted out on • steam launch a little after iU a. m. Sunday tor the purpose of doing what they could with a certain family of sharks reported to have been seen outside the harbor. They stocked the launch well, preparatory to an all-day*s hunt Just outside the harbor unmistakable signs in the shape o. several fins were noticed projecting above the surface of the water, and they made the soldiers’ hair bristle wi b excitement. A hook baited with a large piece of pork and attached to a heavy line was ihrowu overboard. There was a bite and a pull, and before long a go<> I-sized suark was hauled along and filled with rifle and revolver bullets. This was excitement enough, but, when, after the line had been thrown over again, another shark was captured in the same manner, the men in the launch could hardly remain in their places. The line was cast overboard once more, and soon there was a tug that caused a very burning sensation to pass over the hands of the four men who held it The launch was pulled here and there by what seemed to be a monster twice the size of the others. T his seemed to be proven when the sha k stuck its fin above water. At this seven or eight b illets pierced the bead of the monster, and after a hard fight during which the launch was in imminent danger of being capsized, the prize was brought alongside and towed with the other two to the Aloha boathouse. where it was found to be 11 feet 8 inches from bead to tip of tail, and 531 inches around at its largest part. The largest of the remaining two measured ti feet 8 inches. Upon being cut open the large shark proved to have a stomach exceptionally void, which in some degree accounted for the tug given the line. One of the smaller ones’ stomach was found to contain two bats, one towel and half of the top of a barrel, which one of the soldiers construed as meaning that two native women had gone out in a canoe with a keg of beer, and had been met by the shark, which had devoured one woman, the head of another, and tapped the keg in a peculiar manner.