The Hungry Dog

The Hungry Dog is a steel shrimp boat, eighty feet long, converted into a swordfish longline boat capable of setting thirty miles of longline and gear. It was one of a fleet of eighteen shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The author Edward C. Mueller experiences "the trip of a lifetime" aboard The Hungry Dog, in this engrossing, colorful memoir, where he recounts his story of a swordfishing adventure to the fishing grounds of the "Windward Passage. A self-admitted "greenhorn" at swordfishing on the high seas, the author must learn as he goes along. There's the importance of night watch, protecting the gear, the boat and the crew's lives; hauling and filling up carts; dealing with the tangled mess of half-eaten swordfish; harpooning massive fish in the back of the head; and the often-unbearable physical pain at the end of a challenging day. While the author recalls the frightening experience of one particular day, and trying to forget "how close we came to injury or death," his swordfishing adventure, in the end, is a memorable one, a journey that crystallized "the fullness of life."