218 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



in his right hand, managing the wheel with his left. 

 "Now then!" cried the angler, as with a supreme effort 

 he stopped the shark. The gaff slipped under the 

 ugly jaw; the man lay back as the big tail came around, 

 sending spray and masses of water at them; held with 

 all his strength while the monster tuna-killer rolled 

 over and over in its agony, rolled and struck, snapping 

 like a bull-dog. The gaffer gradually hauled it up, 

 having stopped the engine, — held it with one hand, 

 and with the other gave the tuna-killer its quietus 

 with a sharp knife, ending the long and difficult 

 catch with a sixteen-ounce rod and a twenty-one-thread 

 line. 



By this time the school of tunas had moved a mile 

 north, and had evidently spread out, making the danger 

 from sharks much less. That this was true was soon 

 shown, as the line, a number nine, now tossed over, 

 stiffened out almost at the start, and the lithe resilient 

 nine-ounce rod bent and bowed as the angler gave 

 the tuna the butt, then straightened up as he released 

 the pressure on his thumb pad. The boatman mean- 

 time turned the launch after the flying fish, endeavor- 

 ing to stop it before it carried off all the nine hundred 

 feet of line. 



Almost invariably the leaping tuna will plunge to 

 the bottom when hooked in deep water, and this 

 initial rush is often so tremendous that it is entirely 

 irresistible; but the yellow-fin, the "tuna of arrival" 

 (for he is a very late arrival on these happy angling 

 grounds), very frequently disdains this common route 

 to the region of broken tackle and makes a clean rush 

 away upon the surface, — a performance that is in every 

 sense a "sunderer of companies," the fish at times 



