Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current.One bait was down forty fathoms. The second was at seventy-five and the third and fourth were down in the blue water at one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five fathoms.Each bait hung head down with the shank of the hook inside the bait fish,tied and sewed solid and all the projecting part of the hook,the curve and the point,was covered with fresh sardines.Each sardine was hooked through both eyes so that they made a half-garland on the projecting steel.There was no part of the hook that a great fish could feel which was not sweet smelling and good tasting.
If they don't travel too fast I will get into them,the old man thought,and he watched the school working the water white and the bird now dropping and dipping into the bait fish that were forced to the surface in their panic.
I could just drift,he thought,and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe to wake me.But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well.
Now is no time to think of baseball,he thought.Now is the time to think of only one thing.That which I was born for.There might be a big one around that school,he thought. I picked up only a straggler from the albacore that were feeding.But they are working far out and fast.Everything that shows on the surface today travels very fast and to the northeast.Can that be the time of day?Or is it some sign of weather that I do not know?