Word: fishing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Paleontologist Ho depends on neither time travel nor thermometers for measuring ancient body temperatures. Instead, he works with collagen, a protein found in human and animal connective tissue and skeletal structures. Aware that the proportion of an imino acid, hydroxyproline, is lower in the collagen of cold-water fish than in fish that swim in warmer waters, Ho reasoned that the composition of collagen in warm-blooded animals might vary with their body temperatures...
There are bigger fish in the ocean-but not by much. The alltime record is 1,182 Ibs., caught by the late Lou Marron off Chile in 1953, and monsters easily twice as big have been seen. To that frightening bulk add fantastic speed (up to 60 m.p.h.), a long, terrible sword with which Gladius slays his prey, and a personality of regal, often violent, disdain for virtually anything and everything he encounters in the water...
...fearlessness makes the swordfish a regular item in supermarkets. Ordinarily he feeds down deep, and then when the mood strikes him, rises to the surface for a snooze in the sun, never dreaming that anyone would dare commit lese majeste. Commercial "stick" boats run right up to the basking fish and let fly with harpoons. But, ah, for the sport fisherman, armed only with rod, reel, and a passion for punishment, it is an altogether different kettle of fish. Swordfishing, wrote Zane Grey, "takes more time, patience, endurance, study, skill, nerve and strength, not to mention money, of any game...
Throw It at Him. Experts estimate that the odds against an angler simply spotting a broadbill on any given day are 10 to 1. Even then the odds against hooking the fish are 15 to 1. Swordfish have to be coddled into taking a bait; with a full stomach only the most dessert-happy sword can be tempted by mackerel or squid. Fishermen have been known to make ten or more passes before a lazing giant without achieving so much as a blink from those cold blue eyes. On the wildly illogical assumption that he does swallow the bait...
...weeks ago, he tied into an even bigger fish off Montauk, N.Y. "I fought him for 5¾ hours," says Margulies, "before the reel jammed and the line finally broke. By the time it was over, the pressure on my leather shoulder harness had cut my shoulders and rib cage to ribbons, and I was covered with blood." At least he doesn't have to live with the experience of New York Attorney Frank Bramm, who connected off Montauk. Bramm battled the fish for two hours, skillfully thwarting his every stratagem. At last he maneuvered him to within...