212 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNLA 



If I had not been trout-fishing I could have partici- 

 pated in this fine sport; but, on the other hand, one 

 does not take a nine-and-three-quarter-pound rainbow- 

 trout (in the presence of witnesses) every day; so one 

 is on the horns of a dilemma. It is very evident that 

 if you turn your back on sea-angling for a summer 

 something extraordinary happens; and if 3'ou are sea- 

 angling, some one is taking giant trout. But once did 

 I strike a happy combination, and that was on the 

 Soquel, in California. One day I fished this charming 

 stream for trout; the next day I drove to the Bay of 

 Monterey, five miles distant, and trolled for sea salmon 

 and white sea bass, and caught them, too. But which 

 has the greater charm? — there 's the rub. If pressed for 

 a reply I should say that the sports are entirely differ- 

 ent; there is no comparison between them. It would 

 be manifestly unfair to say that one exceeds the other 

 in charm. In one you have the forests of the shore, 

 the running brooks; on the other, you are floating over 

 the marvellous forests of the great Kuro Shiwo, or the 

 Gulf Stream, and if I must choose I take them both; 

 one, for the strenuous life, for the riotous play to the 

 finish with the big and exciting game, tima or tarpon, 

 wild, bucking steeds of the sea; the other, for its calm, 

 pastoral delights, its gentle melodies of running waters, 

 and sighing pine needles. 



WHien the Sicilian tuna fishermen hear that the big 

 tunas are passing the Balearic Isles in May they hasten 

 to the shrine of St. Sebastian, to give thanks and offer- 

 ings for what they term the "tuna of arrival," for 

 you must know the tuna is as uncertain in the Adriatic 

 as in California. In July, if the gods are propitious, 

 the fishermen off the coast of Southern Spain find 



