Chapters 21 and 22 and Epilogue Summary and Analysis

Fishing

On July 14th, famed big-game hunter and taxidermist Michael Schleisser set out with fisherman John Murphy on their eight-foot wooden motorboat on a fishing expedition in Raritan Bay. When the men reached the bay, they cast a six-foot trawling net. They traveled within four miles of the mouth of Matawan Creek. Suddenly the boat slammed to a halt, immediately killing the motor. The net had caught something, something very big, that was literally pulling the boat back and downward. They were astonished to see that they had netted a huge shark. Murphy put his weight on the stern to keep the craft from tipping over. Schleisser grabbed a broken oar that was in the boat. As he made his way toward the stern, he was shocked to see that the shark had risen out...