ENGLISHMAN AS HUMAN BAIT TO CATCH AN OCTOPUS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 53, 14 February 1949, Page 5

ENGLISHMAN AS HUMAN BAIT TO CATCH AN OCTOPUS

Sir Arthur Gribble, in a recent 8.8. C. programme, told of a fight with an octopus. He has had a great dread of these fearful fish since childhood, but it had lain dormant for years until, when he was serv-, ing as district officer in the Gilbert y and Ellice Islands, he' watched two islanders at their busines of catching and killing octopi for food. The Gilbertese hunt these abominable fish in pairs, a» dangerous job which they take very lightly. Onet man acts as bait, the other as killer. The bait dives near the lurking decapod and is caught in the tentacles, which seek to pull him into its. niche. The killer then dives down, . snatches at the octopus, jerks his. pinioned colleague smartly backwards and so tears the decapod adrift. Immediately'the bait gives a kick, which brings him to the surfacewith the decapod clinging to him. He turns on his back and exposes the beast for the kill. The killer grasps the great fish’s head from behind, turns the face towards himself, plunges his, teeth between the bulging eyes, arid bites down and in with all his strength. The tieoepod dies instantly, the suckers release their hold, and the partners string their catch on a pole and set off to get the next one. . He' described his encounter with the fish, when he once acted as the bait: “I remember chiefly a dread-, ful sliminess with a Herculean power behind it. Something whipped round my left forearm and the back of my neck; in the same flash something else attached itself high on my forearm and I felt it crawling down inside the back of my singlet. “I forgot there was anyone to save me. Yet spmething still directed me to hold my breath. I was awakened from my trance by a quick; strong pull on my shoulders, backwards from the cranny. The cables around me tightened painfully, but I knew I was adrift from the reef. I gave a kick, rose to the surface, and turned on my back with the brute sticking out of my chest like a tumour. My mouth was smothered by some flabby, moving horror. The suckers felt like hot' rings pulling at my skin. “My friend came up between me and the reef. He pounced, bit down, and the thing was over.”