“Oh--wow,” howled Jack, shaking his hand.
“Ho, ho, that was funny,” laughed Ray. “Loop the line around your hand next time Jack, and snub him good. Then keep hauling in as hard as you can, or you’ll lose him.”
Jack hooked another piece of clam onto the jig and tossed it astern, and the moment he had the line looped about his hand came another savage jerk-- Zipp-pp hissed the line through the water, but Jack snubbed back and started to haul away hand over hand, the fish thrashing from side to side and even jumping clear of the water in his mad effort to tear free.
“Wow, what a corker,” cried Jack, as he swung the struggling thing into the dory.
“Oh, he isn’t so big,” said Ray. “Pollock grow sixty and seventy pounds and I’ve seen ’em even bigger than that. That’s only a young one you caught. Weighs about five pounds, I guess. This is a school of little ones, I tell you. Try again.”
Jack hove the jig again and for the next fifteen minutes he was busy as could be hauling in the big silvery fish. They bit ravenously and before he knew it he had caught at least a score. Finally his fingers became so blistered and chafed that he simply had to quit.
“Here,” he said, “you take the line, Ray. I’m through.”
“All right,” said Ray. “Keep rowing around in a big figure eight. Keep right in the school. Follow the birds. I’ll see if I can’t yank out a couple of big ones just for luck. I wish I had a pair of nippers, though--those are woolen gloves with the fingers cut. They protect your hands. All fishermen use ’em up here on the Maine coast.”
But before Ray had caught more than a couple of fish, the surface of the water became suddenly quiet again and the troop of gulls, after a few farewell squeaks, dispersed and flew off in different directions.
“Hang it, just when I started to get interested the bloomin’ things disappear. That’s my luck. Too bad. They’ll come to the surface again somewhere else, but there’s no use of our trying to follow them. They may come up a mile or so out to sea. Guess we’re through fishing for to-day. I don’t care though, do you?”
“No, only for your sake,” said Jack. “I was selfish to keep the line so long.”
“Oh, pshaw, don’t mind me. I’ve had more fishing than a little. When a fellow has to do it for a living it ceases to be fun,” said Ray with a smile, as he sat down in the stern and surveyed the catch.