338 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



of the finest kind to the thousands who visit these 

 islands. 



The yellowtail of thirty pounds is to my mind the 

 equal of several bluefish; that is, could, if in a tug of 

 war, pull them around and drown them. This is my 

 impression after having taken scores of each kind with 

 rod and reel. A twenty-five-pound yellowtail in its 

 prime is the true king of fishes for fighting qualities, 

 pugnacity, and the happy faculty of never discovering 

 that it is defeated. 



I was fishing one day in Catalina harbor with a 

 friend. We had taken a flour barrel from the yacht 

 in which to place our fish. My companion hooked 

 a yellowtail, played it a long time, indeed until he was 

 weary. The boatman gaffed it, and as he dropped it 

 into the barrel the angler remarked that the fish did 

 not know when it was whipped. It certainly did not, 

 as at that moment it made a bound, cleared the barrel 

 and landed in the water. 



The yellowtail attains, on the authority of the 

 author of "The Voyage of the Cachelot," a weight 

 of one hundred pounds. I have seen one that weighed 

 eighty pounds dressed; Mr. Conn took an eighty- 

 pounder in Mexico; but the average fish at Santa 

 Catalina runs from seventeen to twenty-five pounds, 

 with many at thirty and a few at forty-five and 

 fifty. At San Clemente they seem to run larger; in 

 1907-08 I found fishes there in large numbers up to 

 forty pounds. 



Mr. William W. Simpson holds the rod record of 

 the Tuna Club with a fish weighing sixty-one and 

 one-half pounds, — an exceptional catch which created a 

 sensation. It now hangs on the wall of Mr. Simpson's 



