The Devil-Fish of Port Orchard
A local fisherman's harrowing encounter with a tentacled beast off the coast of Kitsap County.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A young man who was fishing at Port Orchard one day last week, received a rather startling surprise on hauling in his line by finding a good-sized devil-fish attached thereto. He represents it as having a body about ten inches in diameter, and eight or nine arms fully three feet in length and armed with suckers all along their lower sides. As the fish was rather disposed to be aggressive and took hold of the boat with considerable emphasis, the fisherman concluded he did not care to bring him ashore as a contribution to science, but disengaged the hook and let him go.
“As the fish was rather disposed to be aggressive and took hold of the boat with considerable emphasis, the fisherman concluded he did not care to bring him ashore.”
While giant Pacific octopuses are local legends in the Puget Sound today, early settlers clearly viewed these 'devil-fish' with a mixture of maritime superstition and genuine terror. The incident echoes the long-standing Pacific Northwest fascination with the mysterious, often 'aggressive' inhabitants of our deep, cold waters.
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