Hunters have a habit of excusing the rhino's evil temper (he's nearsighted) and the rogue elephant's murderous charge (he probably has a toothache). But hardly anybody has a good word for the shark. On any coastline, the cry "Shark!" is guaranteed to produce 1) instant panic in the local chamber of commerce, and 2) a sudden boom in swimming-pool sales. Sailors blaze away at passing sharks with rifles and shotguns, ichthyologists denounce them as witless garbage disposals, and many a fisherman disgustedly reels in his bait at the first glimpse of a triangular dorsal fin slicing the surface.
Silly fellow. On those frequent days when the marlin are lunching someplace else and the tuna are laughing at lures, the smart thing to do is catch a shark. He may or may not be pretty, but he's always there, he's always big, and he'll eat anything—including the intrepid angler if he gets half a chance. In Australia, where 115 swimmers have been killed by sharks in the past 65 years, the shark has long been considered the king of game fish. "Nothing compares to it," insists Sydney Businessman Peter Goadby. "It's wonderful to pit yourself against a creature so big and powerful, so perfectly designed for his position in life." In South Africa, where surf casters hook into 700-lb. sharks close to Durban's most popular bathing beaches, Electrician Cecil Jacobs, whose catch last year totaled 1,960 Ibs., exults: "It's fighting, fighting, fighting all the way." And in the U.S., where some 1,500,000 sharks were caught on rod and reel last year, "monster fishing" is a fast-growing sport among anglers who are weary of coming home with nothing but a sunburn. "You get a 150-lb. shark on a 20-lb.-test line," says Wayne Snodgrass, an electronics technician from San Rafael, Calif., "and it's like holding a horse on a shoestring."
Requiem. There are six extraspecial sharks that have earned a place in the International Game Fish Association's official list of sporting fish—all six of which, incidentally, belong to the "requiem" family (a tony way of saying that they are hungry for human meat). Smallest is the porbeagle, a toothy rascal that inhabits the North Atlantic and grows to a mere 600 Ibs. There is the slender blue shark, a handsome indigo in color and up to 800 Ibs. of pure ferocity; the weird-looking thresher, which batters its prey senseless with an enormous scythelike tail and comes in an economy-size 1,000-lb. package; and the voracious tiger shark, which reportedly tops two tons—though the biggest ever caught on rod and reel weighed 1,780 Ibs.