![]() ![]() In Elliott’s day they were considered monsters and called devil-fish (now commonly named devil-rays) because of the distinctive cephalic fins (‘head fins’) Elliott was an avid sportsman and writer and celebrated this pastime in his popular essay titled Incidents of Devil-Fishing, recounting this nineteenth-century sport of the sea.īut, do you know, gentle reader, what a devil-fish is? Perhaps you never saw one, even in a museum! Imagine, then a monster measuring from sixteen to Twenty feet across the back, full three feet in depth, having powerful yet flexible flaps or wings, with which he drives himself furiously through the water, or vaults high into air: his feelers (commonly called horns) projecting several feet beyond his mouth, and paddling all the small fry, that constitute his food, into that enormous receiver – and you have an idea, an imperfect one, of this curious fish, which annually, during the summer months, frequents our southern seacoast. William Elliott of Beaufort claimed to be the first to harpoon a devil-fish in 1817 in Port Royal Sound. ![]() Man with a barbed spear attached to a rope against a mammoth 2-4,000 pound fish. Beaufortonians who have caught sight of these majestic creatures have likely witnessed their spectacular ability to erupt clear out of the water at high speeds, flap their wing-like fins several times, and land back in the water with a thunderous slap!ĭevil-fishing as it was called, was a perilous game played out on the open water in a tiny boat. ![]()
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