68 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



Classification of Blue Button Winners 



Seven buttons awarded to associate members. 

 Three buttons awarded to active members holding Red Buttons. 

 One button awarded to elected active member. 



Seventeen buttons awarded to anglers not members at time of catch, 

 but later elected. 



The leaping tuna, Thunnus thynnus, is not only a 

 game fish, but edible. In Italy the fisheries are most 

 important and the fishermen parade the streets and 

 appeal to the saints for good seasons. There they are 

 caught in vast nets, and not a scrap of tuna is wasted. 

 In California there is no demand for the fish for food 

 except by the Italians; but nearly all that are taken 

 with rod and reel are mounted by Chas. C. Parker, 

 the Avalon taxidermist, who has sent them all over 

 this country and to England as trophies; to take a 

 tuna over one hundred pounds in weight, according 

 to Tuna Club rules, is supposed to mean something. 



Exactly where the leaping tuna goes in winter has 

 always been a mooted question, but this year, when 

 Mr. C. G. Conn was fishing in the Gulf of California, 

 he found that the tunas visited that region. He refers 

 to it as follows: 



"I am writing you the information, etc. We have prac- 

 tically ascertained definitely that the tuna come south in the 

 winter, although we have not found their rendezvous. They 

 make their appearance in March each year at San Lucas Bay 

 where they may be found in great numbers. The natives 

 catch them then with harpoons, and they say that some of 

 the fish weigh over three hundred pounds. The natives call 

 these tuna large albacores, and their description of the leaping 

 of the fish, some of which they say jump out of the water ten 

 feet into the air, settles in my mind all doubt as to the migra- 

 tion of the tuna south during the winter months. The natives 



