INCIDENTS IN TUNA FISHING 53 



length, and weighed one hundred and eighty- three 

 pounds, was a typical tuna, the embodiment of what is 

 best in the tribe, the hardest fighting game fish known, 

 rich in reserve and force, prolific in expedient, and 

 invested with an inexhaustible supply of that some- 

 thing which, translated, means "dying game." A few 

 evenings ago I heard Major Burnham describe how a 

 large African elephant he shot fought twenty minutes 

 after it had two or three bullets in its heart; it did 

 not give up — ^^the highest quality of courage; and 

 this big fish exemplified this in its every act and move, 

 its last rush or run towing my heavy boat four miles; 

 even when gaffed it smashed and splintered the weapon, 

 and when dragged in, pounded the planking with 

 mighty blows that had a menacing ring. 



No one could watch the struggle of this fish and not 

 regret its fall; yet the catch established the fact, not 

 believed up to that time, that the very large tunas, 

 up to and over one hundred and eighty pounds, could 

 be caught with light tackle, or a twenty-one-thread 

 line, with a breaking strength of forty-two pounds. 



Every angler has had experience with fishes of differ- 

 ent power, yet of the same size. I have known a one- 

 hundred-and-thirty-pound tuna to be landed in ten 

 minutes. I have hooked a six-foot tarpon that I 

 could have fought to a finish in less time. Salmon, 

 bass, mahseer, rohu — indeed, all fishes — have their 

 failures, their disappointments; but this tuna repre- 

 sented, to me at least, all that is best in the tribe; 

 and the catch is described as an appreciation of what 

 I believe to be the typical tuna, and not the underfed, 

 spawning, or invalid fish that sometimes falls to the 

 lot of the disappointed angler. 



