Presaging “The Old Man and the Sea,” Hemingway Describes How to Fish for Marlin

One of the great iconic images of Ernest Hemingway is the 20th century author standing next to a marlin, one he has caught.  We associate him with the sea, and nowhere is that more the case than with Marlin fishing.  These were the first incentives Hemingway had to travel to Cuba after his friend Joe Russell invited him to fish marlins in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico (where, it is said, Hemingway captured almost 20 fish). From that moment on, marlin fishing became his lifelong obsession. In 1928 Hemingway moved to Key West, writing “A Farewell to Arms” the following year, which made him financially independent, and “Death in the Afternoon” in 1932. The Depression year of 1933 saw him on African safari, where he fell in love with the continent.  From 1936-9, he reported on the Spanish Civil War, and he was present at the Battle of the Ebro, the last republican stand. However, in between stints in Spain, he managed to get back to Key West to do some marlin fishing. In World War II, from June 1942 until the end of 1943, Hemingway did almost no writing. Instead, he equipped his 38-foot fishing boat, Pilar, with weapons and became a volunteer captain in “the Hooligan Navy,” part of a fleet of civilian vessels recruited during the desperate submarine war early in World War II to try to spot German U-boats. To Hemingway, fishing was there, always present.

In 1951, Hemingway wrote and the next year published “The Old Man and the Sea”, one of his most famous books. This was the last major work of fiction produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime, and was a summation of what he loved most. The story centers on Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulfstream.  In the book, he discusses the struggles of catching and gaffing (using a hook to bring in the marlin once it was close to the boat), and equates the struggle to catch this marlin as a metaphor for Santiago’s struggles with life and ambition.  It ends with the man dreaming of Africa, like Hemingway himself no doubt.  It is an epic of American literature and the enduring legacy of Hemingway.  There are echoes of Hemingway’s life throughout the book.  

In this letter, apparently unpublished, Hemingway writes in great detail about how to bring in a marlin, and discusses not only technique but how he does and has done it.  He references learning to fish and alludes to the strong pull it has on him (in his anticipated dream) and demonstrates the simple, straight forward and unadorned style for which Hemingway’s prose is admired.  

Typed Letter Signed, January 13, 1935, Key West, to playwright James P. McConnaughey, author of “Farewell to Glamour.” “We always gaff a marlin in the head no matter where he is hooked. Gaffing them there gives you control over the part of the fish that is dangerous, ie his head and bill. Also the head of the fish is what you bring toward you and is what you gaff to.  When you get the head up by the boat the tail may be fourteen feet away if the fish would be big enough. How are you to lead their tail toward you when the hook is in the fishes mouth? Also the gaff holds best in the fish’s head and you can then grab the bill and hang on while you club him across the top of the head between the eyes.  A gaff in the head kills the fish too and does not spoil the meat. Unless you gaff through the gills a fish bleeds very little when gaffed in the head.  Some people gaff under the pectoral fin but I think this is messy (it would gaff into the roe if a fish had one) and besides you cannot lift a big fish that way.  Gaffing in the tail I have never heard about until your letter.  I have seen one gaffed that way accidentally but had no idea anyone would ever do it on purpose.  However there are lots of ways of doing all sorts of things and if Mr. Guild gaffs them that way he must have developed a technique for it.  But everyone in Cuba where I learned to fish for marlin gaffs them in the head and out of about a hundred and twenty that I have caught would say that all but four or five have been gaffed in the head and those were gaffed elsewhere by slips or by accident.  If you write or see Mr. Guild will you tell him this for me and give him my compliments and best wishes.  I can see how technically anybody could make out a case for gaffing in the tail, ie you pull the tail out of the water and the fish is helpless etc.  But how do you get close to his tail when you bring him in head first?  Also I can assure you I have never lost a marlin gaffed in the head and since the object of gaffing a fish is to make sure of him and to kill him, at the same time I can recommend that way of gaffing to you without any reservations. Thank you for your letter (am sure I’ll dream some night now about gaffing some marlin wrong end to; would be willing to try it were they plentiful enough) and I hope you’ll have the chance to gaff one yourself this season.  Yours always, Ernest Hemingway.” An uncommon full signature. The Mr. Guild referenced may have been Boston publisher and music patron Courtney Guild.

In 1953, Hemingway would win the Pulitzer Prize for “The Old Man and the Sea” and the next year he would receive the Nobel Prize for literature.