FISHING THE PACIFIC 



and a spectacular littoral. There is excellent duck and goose 

 shooting. Upland hunters find quail and dove shooting 

 diverting. Those who like big game hunting can shoot deer 

 and bear in the mountains. California trout fishing is excellent 

 and so is angling for salt-water species along its shores, par- 

 ticularly in the southern section of the state where, off San 

 Diego and Catalina, broadbill swordfish, marlin, albacore and 

 other species abound. But when you visit California for a go 

 at your favorite fish— whatever it be— you will find the 

 world's best fishing for the striped bass at many hot spots near 

 San Francisco. 



Van Campen Heilner is one of the best informed men on 

 striped bass in this country. Van has fished for them every- 

 where and, furthermore, dug into the past to try to find out 

 more about them. He told me that just as Catalina was the 

 cradle of the swordfish, marlin and tuna fishing, the Shrews- 

 bury and Navesink Rivers in northern New Jersey, some 

 twenty-odd miles from New York City, cradled striped bass 

 fishing in America. 



In 1879, some 19 years before the first tuna was taken off 

 Cahfornia, 107 striped bass were shipped from the Navesink 

 River and liberated in the Carquinez Straits near San Fran- 

 cisco. The average size of the first shipment was from one- 

 and-a-half to three inches in length, and a few were "medi- 

 um-sized" specimens. 



You will have to guess at what is meant by medium size, 

 for the records do not give details as to weight or length. In 

 1882, 300 were taken from the Shrewsbury River and re- 

 leased in Suisun Bay, California. This shipment consisted of 

 bass running from five to nine inches in length. These two 



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