''Tales of Tahitian Waters'' is a 1931 book by Zane Grey. The book collects several fishing stories and was first published by

Harper Brothers Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

and was later republished in 1990 by

Derrydale Press The Derrydale Press was an American book publishing company founded in 1927 with headquarters on Park Ave. in Manhattan, New York. It was the creation of Princeton University graduate Eugene V. Connett III (1891–1969). He told ''Time'' magazine ...

. In the book Grey describes catching a marlin weighing 1,040 pounds and the catch was credited as being the first 1,000 pound fish ever caught. Keith Elliott of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' called ''Tales of Tahitian Waters'' along with ''Tales of Swordfish and Tuna'', and ''Tales of Fishing Virgin Seas'' "even today, among the finest works on big-game fishing".

Synopsis

''Tales of Tahitian Waters'' describes Grey's fishing expeditions to the Tahitian Islands in 1928, 1929, and 1930. In the book, Grey claims to be the first big game fisherman to fish these waters and there is little cause to doubt his claim. He had passed through

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...

en route to other fishing expeditions in Australia and New Zealand, and had heard of marlin and sharks. Grey held many fishing records for these species and was determined to pursue these fish. In ''Tales of Tahitian Waters'', he claims a special affection for these waters, and he visited them several times afterward, although those visits were not the subject of this book. Grey believed that these were the most difficult waters he had fished. Amongst other trials, ''Tales of Tahitian Waters'' records an 83-day span during which Grey did not catch a single billfish. It is believed that this provided inspiration for Hemingway's '' The Old Man and the Sea''.This claim is made in the cover notes to the 1990 reprint, written by Grey's son Loren. Carlton Jackson wrote in his 1989 book ''Zane Grey'':

On the eighty-fourth day, he caught, with rod and reel, a giant Tahitian marlin that weighed 1,040 founds. Although Grey tried desperately to get the creature ashore, the fish was ravaged by a shark. Some Grey fans today credit Grey's experience with inspiring Hemingway's ''The Old Man and the Sea''. See Zane Grey, ''Tales of Tahitian Waters'' (1931), and ''The Zane Grey Collector'', 3:1:12–13.

Grey's Tahiti expeditions were months at a time, and he built a permanent camp at

Vairao Vairao, also Port Vairao and Matiti, is a small port town and district on the southwest coast of Tahiti, just to the northwest of Teahupo'o Teahupoo () is a village on the southwestern coast of the island of Tahiti, French Polynesia, in the sou ...

, a beach he describes in superlatives. ''Tales of Tahitian Waters'' also includes descriptions of a number of previously uncatalogued species, some of which Grey caught and recorded, some of which were hooked but were too big to bring to the boat, and some of which were merely seen in the water. The book includes many photographs taken by Grey and his crew, as well as a few watercolors painted by artists who stayed at Grey's fishing camp.

References

{{Zane Grey Tahitian culture 1931 books 1931 short story collections Fishing in Oceania Works about fishing Harper & Brothers books Works by Zane Grey