CHAPTER VI 



INCIDENTS IN TUNA FISHING 



THERE is hardly a really great national sport 

 that has not arrived at its true perfection 

 by slow evolution, and this is particularly 

 true of sea-angling. Some twenty-four years ago, hav- 

 ing taken nearly all the game fishes, large and small, 

 of the East Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, I strayed 

 over to the island of Santa Catalina. Anglers readily 

 become enthusiastic, but this maze of mountains rising 

 out of a turquoise sea, the quiet bays, the lofty cliffs, 

 made a profound impression on me; and when I saw 

 men throwing cast-lines from the beach and landing 

 fishes weighing from seventeen to forty pounds, more 

 or less, fishes which for strength and game qualities 

 would put the salmon to shame, I made up my mind 

 that I had discovered a fisherman's paradise. 



There was one professional boatman on the island, 

 Jose Felice Presiado, or "Mexican Joe," whom I 

 engaged, and in his heavy, broad-beamed yawl he 

 rowed me from one end of the island to the other; a 

 thirty-mile pull along the rocky and beautiful shores 

 was a bagatelle to Joe. After landing m^e on the 

 Avalon beach, where the waters sang musically on 

 the sands, he would row home to a canon four miles 

 up the coast. At six the next morning he would be 

 on hand again, and we would repeat the trip or go 

 around the south end to the windv/ard. 



50 



