Hebridean Sharker

A classic memoir of danger and adventure by a Scottish shark fisherman.

In Hebridean Sharker, Tex Geddes describes his exploits during the 1950s as a hunter of basking sharks in the waters of the Minch, between the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Using an adapted whaling harpoon, he and his crew stalked these huge fish—their livers a valuable source of oil—often in perilous conditions.


Always a maverick, Geddes had been a boxer and a rumrunner to Newfoundland before World War II. During the war he established a reputation as an expert knife-thrower and bayonet fencer and served in the Special Forces with Gavin Maxwell, celebrated author of Ring of Bright Water. He combined the hazardous pursuit of sharks with crewing the local lifeboat, ring-net fishing, lobstering, deer-stalking, and salmon poaching. He went on to purchase the tiny island of Soay, where he lived with his wife Jeanne, continued to hunt sharks. and became the Laird. This is his story, full of adventures and fantastic descriptions of a seagoing life in the islands.