The method pursued by the crocodile hunters of Borneo is as effective as it is ingenious. Their fishing tackle consists of a hook, which is a straight piece of hard wood, about the size of a twelve-inch ruler, sharpened at both ends; a ten-foot leader, woven from the tough, stringy bark of the baru tree; and a single length of rattan or cane, fifty feet or so in length, which serves as a line. One end of the leader is attached to a shallow notch cut in the piece of wood, the other end is fastened to the rattan. With a few turns of cotton one end of the stick is then lightly bound to the leader, thus bringing the two into a straight line. Then comes the bait, which must be chosen with discrimination. Though the body of a dog or pig will usually answer, the morsel that most infallibly tempts a crocodile is the carcass of a monkey. But it must not be a freshly killed monkey, mind you. A crocodile will only swallow meat that is in an advanced stage of decomposition, the more overpowering its stench the greater the likelihood of the bait being taken. The bait is securely lashed to the pointed stick, though anyone but a Malay would require a gas-mask to perform this part of the operation.
Everything now being ready, the bait is suspended from the bough of a tree overhanging the pool which the crocodile is known to frequent, being so arranged that the carcass swings a foot or so above the surface of the stream at high water level, the end of the rattan being planted in the bank. Lured by the smell of the bait, which in that torrid climate quickly acquires a bouquet which can be detected a mile to leeward, the crocodile is certain sooner or later to thrust its long snout out of the water and snap at the odoriferous bundle dangling so temptingly overhead, the slack line offering no resistance until the bait has been swallowed and the brute starts to make off. Then the man-eater gets the surprise of its long and checkered life, for the planted end of the rattan holds sufficiently to snap the threads which bind the pointed stick to the leader. The stick, thus caused to resume its original position at right angles to the line, becomes jammed across the crocodile's belly, the pointed ends burying themselves in the tender abdominal lining.