The Navy might not fish for monkeys but it will hook almost anything edible

A Perfect Day for Banana Fish

The "monkeyfishing" story published on Slate.com has been exposed as a 
hoax. Online sites and print sources are lining up to take credit for this 
exposure. The self-congratulatory remarks are only slightly less loud than 
a bison stampede.

I admit to be fully taken in by this hoax. I still am, in a sense. I think 
fisherman who piece the upper lips of catfish and other delights would not 
be opposed to impaling a monkey on a nasty hook hidden in a ripe banana.

I don't think fishermen are any different from hunters who use questionable 
means, such as grenades and high-powered rifles, to shoot deer and large 
game animals. It is common knowledge  that heicopters are used to hunt elk 
in North Dakota and Alaska. Armored personnel carriers (APC) have been used 
to run down game, from wart hogs to mule deer, in war zones at least since 
World War 1. Park rangers in the US have testified before Congress that 
snowmobilers regularly run large game to exxhaustion just for the fun of 
it. Who doesn't remember reports of hang gliders descending on herd of wild 
goats in Switzerland, guns ablazing. Or snowboarders in Crested Butte 
hunting hares with boards and bare hands.

So hooking monkeys with a banana-laced fishing line does not seem 
particularly unusual. If it has not been done in America, I wonder why not.

The reason I became hooked on the Slate story is that I had seen something 
similar when I was in the Navy. It was quite common for Naval personnel on 
my ship, the USS Mount Baker, to fish when steaming seaward under the 
Golden Gate or entering San Francisco Bay on the way up the Sacrementio 
River to Port Chicago, near Concord.

The fishermen were usually the cooks, because they were not occupied when 
we were entering or leaving port. Plus they had the perfect bait-left-over 
chiceken parts. The Baker's cooks would lace their deep-sea fishing hooks 
with a half or whole chicken, drop it over the side and without fail, hook 
a sand shark. The catch was then hauled aboard and beaten to death on the 
steel deck. The cooks usually waited until they had an even dozen before 
carrying out the sentence.

Sometimes, because of the stiff wind in our wake, the baited hook would 
skim over the surfac, attracting the attention of seagulls and other 
coastal birds. The cooks considered they had hit pay dirt when sand sharks 
and seagulls became hooked and provided the crew with live aerial drama. 
The seagulls would pull the chicken into the air and the shark would try to 
take it under. And the fisherman kept the tension on his line.

When this unholy mess was landed, there wasn't much left to salvage so the 
cooks threw the catch over the side and repeated the episode. I never once 
witnessed an officer or senior enlisted man interrupting this activity.

This activity was also practiced when we were at sea. There was plenty of 
food for bait on Navy ships. Sometimes we used Grade A sirloin as bait, 
catching mainly sharks. Occasionally we woul hook a dolphin that would wear 
itself out before falling victim to sharks. The real circus would begin 
when the ship would drop garbage astern, as was the custom then, inviting 
sharks, seagulls, and curious dophins. You could hear the screeching for 
miles. Sometimes bets were taken on how long a seagull could continue 
flying once hooked. I think 55 minutes was the longest time. Someone won $5.

The cooks had fun using rats found in the pantry.  Some were attached by 
their tails to a heavy fishing line. The art, as the cooks saw it, was to 
keep the rat fur from getting wet before a fish or bird hit the bait. One 
boatswain mate attached a  record nine rats to a line and called it "the 
rat of nine tails." That was about as funny as it got aboard ship.

The cooks and other seamen didn't just single out birds, rodents or other 
animals for such treatment. Sometimes junior crew members got as "taste of 
waterline", as the expression goes.

This practice was most common when we crossed the Equator or International 
Dateline. First cruise seamen-boots--where attached by their belt to a 
thick hawser and thrown over the side, as a part of the King Neptune 
festivities. As anyone who has participated knows, the King Neptune 
festivities represent a period of shipboard lawlessness during which new 
seamen are subjected to all manner of indoctrination.

One my ship one activity practiced was dragging a sailor behind the ship 
with various pieces of meat attached to attract attention. The winner-the 
last one to plead for his life-would get an extra day of liberty in Hong 
Kong or Subic Bay.

Since the ship's officers didn't really oversee this activity-indeed, some 
were in hiding, the practice could go on for hours until King 
Neptune-usually a First Class boatswain mate, got bored and called it off.

Certainly this practice was dangerous, cruel, and unmilitary. However, some 
precautions were taken. Gunner's mates with rifles were stationed around 
the ship to ward off sharks, though some were known to have bloodied a 
curious shark in the vicinity, attracting more action.

No one lasted more than a minute in the water. One heavy-set seaman thought 
he had a heart attack but it was only indigestion.  Most considered the 
incident good clean fun.

So the monkey fishing story might have been a fraud. On the other hand, the 
sailors I knew would have fished for chimpanzees  if the occasion presented 
itself.

Perhaps it did, on someone else's watch.