The Hardest Fighters 257 



shore and picked it up. A rope was tossed to my compan- 

 ion, Mr. Dennison of Philadelphia, who fastened it about his 

 waist and was hauled aboard. The boat was righted, and 

 with the first tuna of the season we turned toward Avalon, 

 four miles distant, to claim the Tuna Club prize for the event 

 in rods, etc., which of course went to Jim Gardner. 



This is enough for the average fish story, in fact, it is as 

 much as the ordinary listener who has his limitations will 

 believe, yet as there were three or four disinterested wit- 

 nesses I will go on. As soon as the launch got under way, 

 I noticed Jim grasping for something, then he cried to the 

 engineer to stop, and stood up, and in his trousers was the 

 hook which caught the tuna ; in some way, either during the 

 capsize, or the swim, it had been flung out, and had hooked 

 onto the gaffer. Jim saw that the line led overboard, and to 

 make a very long story short, he hauled in six hundred feet 

 of line, and at the end, up came my rod and reel which had 

 gone to the bottom and slowly unreeled to the end. I have 

 not claimed a Carnegie hero medal for my boatman, but all 

 anglers will appreciate the cleverness and nerve of this man 

 in saving his patron's fish under what, to put it mildly, were 

 adverse circumstances. 



This boatman was my oarsman when I killed the tuna 

 which suggested the Tuna Club. I hooked this fish at six- 

 thirty A. M. off Avalon within sight of the hotel. It towed 

 me to Long Point, four miles, where we were capsized, and 

 in and out at least ten miles, and was gaffed possibly not 

 one hundred feet from where I hooked it, four hours later, 

 after a constant fight on my own part without respite ; and 

 without the aid of the oars, the tuna would doubtless have 

 towed the heavy boat twenty or more miles, as at the end of 

 four hours it appeared nearly as strong as at first. This 

 fish weighed 183 pounds and was six feet four inches in 

 length, and at that time was the largest and most powerful 

 game fish ever taken with rod and reel. I have often been 



