AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2014 - 79

BAKER VAIL

100 yards off the beach, where the tidal flat
drops off and whatever isn't on the surface quickly becomes lost in the shadow
of deeper water. Along that edge, there
is a shape-vague and indistinct-moving
slowly along the edge of the drop-off, but
it disappears as the airplane moves and
the sun glares brightly off the water. Davis
continues to circle. It comes back into
view, this time more clearly. Compared to
the seals, this shape is more teardrop, its
motion from side to side-like a fish, not
a mammal.
"Hey, Cap," Davis radios down to
Bill Chaprales, captain of the Ezyduzit, a
32-foot harpooning boat hired for the project. "I got one."
"Yeah, Wayne, where are ya?"
Chaprales answers.
Pilot and boat captain work as a team.
Davis gives his location along with the
approximate size of the shark (12 to 15
feet long). As Chaprales motors toward
the area, Davis circles over the animal, following as it lazily makes its way along the
beach. He directs the boat precisely to the
prey, maneuvering it into position, mindful
to keep the boat behind the shark so as not
to spook it. "It's about 1:30, call it 12 boat
lengths," Davis says.
Davis and Chaprales have known each
other for years, and worked together with
Skomal in 2007 on a similar project tagging basking sharks. Chaprales has been at
it even longer; he began tagging giant bluefin tuna for the National Marine Fisheries
Service in 1976. He has invented and patented a tagging pole specifically designed
to minimally harm the animal being tagged.
A good fish spotter is crucial to tagging
sharks, Skomal says. Aerial drones or fishfinding sonars just wouldn't work in these
conditions.
The shark starts to drift off into deeper
water, where it might be lost. Davis radios
Chaprales, directing the boat so that it herds
the shark back toward shore, where it can
be more easily pursued.
"Okay, he's at 11:30 now and about four
boat lengths," Davis radios. "Moving just
parallel to the beach." Chaprales's son, Nick,
guns the boat to close the gap. Meanwhile,
Chaprales makes his way out onto the pulpit, a 20-foot rail extending from the bow of
the boat, tipped with a small stand enclosed
by a waist-high circular railing.

GREAT WHITE

sharks are
frequenting
the Outer
Cape,
attracted
by a growing
grey seal
population.

WILL FLY TO FISH

Some pilots fly for a living. Other pilots
live to fly. Davis flies to fish. Growing up
in Point Judith, Rhode Island, fishing was
pretty much all Davis knew or wanted to
do. Fit and wiry, he speaks in exited bursts
of conversation. "I remember my first trip
swordfishing when I was nine years old."
After getting out of the U.S. Army on May
9, 1969, he returned home and to swordfishing. In 1973, he started flying with the
sole intention of being an aerial fish spotter. Coincidentally, his single-engine,
150-horsepower, tandem two-seat Citabria
came out of the factory the same day he
was discharged from the Army. In addition
to its standard 39-gallon fuel capacity, the
Citabria's outfitted with a 60-gallon belly
tank, giving Davis enough fuel to stay airborne for more than 13 hours. And there
were days-many days, Davis says-when he
needed every drop of gas he could carry. His
legs cramped from the constant application
of rudder, so he rigged a bungee cord that he
looped around one of the rudder pedals to
give his feet a break.
Davis flies out of Plymouth, Massachusetts, about an hour and a half drive
from his home, so during fishing season he
pretty much lives at the airport. The hangar
he shares with another pilot looks like an
aviator's flea market. A Cessna 150's fuselage

is wedged up against one wall. What looks
like the fuselage of a Luscombe or a Stinson
lines another. To the side is the bare metal
frame of another aircraft. There's a haphazard collection of doors, cowling covers,
various airfoils, and all kinds of parts. There
is, in fact, barely room for one airworthy aircraft among them.
The mid-1980s and early 1990s were
great times to be an aerial fish spotter,
Davis says. Swordfish and schools of giant
tuna ran thick and close to shore, and if
you were willing to put in long hours,
you could make a good living. At one time
there were as many as 30 aircraft working
New England fishing grounds, and Davis
recalls days in which 10 airplanes might be
crowded over a small area in a scene right
out of the movie The Blue Max. Airplanes
circling, their pilots all looking down at
the water; boat captains all looking at the
sky, calling out traffic to pilots. It was controlled mayhem.
Airplanes and boats communicated
using encrypted radio, to avoid sharing the
locations of fish with rivals. A pilot might
see a school of fish, communicate its position to his boat, then fly off in another
direction to draw the other boats away. It
was a tough business, says Davis, and dangerous. Two pilots were killed in a collision
off Gloucester in 1958. Another pilot was
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2014

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