56 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNL^ 



line was doubled for the gaffer to hold while gaffing 

 the fish. The leader is necessary, for a boring 

 fish will often chafe off a line on the sharp finlets of 

 its tail. 



The launch is a ten-horse-power, eighteen or twenty 

 feet, broad-beamed craft, built on the island for this 

 particular purpose. The gasoline engine is small and 

 well forward, the anglers sitting side by side in arm- 

 chairs facing the stern; the gaffer stands behind them, 

 where he acts as engineer, baiter, gaffer, and man at 

 the wheel, the latter being on the side of the boat. The 

 engine is started and we move out at a three-mile 

 per hour or more pace, slacking out, overrunning 

 the lines until one hundred or more feet is out, then 

 each angler drops the butt into the leather cap 

 fastened to the chair between his legs, holding the 

 rod at an angle of forty-five degrees, beginning the 

 wait with which all fishing events are associated. At 

 this moment the angler has his thumb on a leather 

 pad that is lashed onto the upper cross-bar of the 

 reel ready to press on the line, this being the brake 

 par excellence. 



Out we go into the tinted water, by the lofty cliffs, 

 opening up vistas of the island shore. We are lost in 

 the contemplation of these beauties, when out of the 

 sea of steel rises a curious object. It looks like a 

 gigantic dragon-fly standing on its tail, which it is 

 wriggling vigorously; a few seconds later it is clear of 

 the water, and with four big wings set, soars away 

 across our wake — the very luckiest thing that could 

 happen, for every angler knows that the flying-fish 

 has been flushed by a tuna, possibly two, and that 

 they will cross our baits. 



