340 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



resist its game plays. In fact the Bay of Avalon will 

 often be crowded in some place with rowboats, each 

 containing two or three men, women, or children, all 

 provided with light rods of various kinds, and all 

 fishing for yellowtail. I have seen forty or nearly 

 twice as many anchored here together, and over two 

 hundred anglers. Every time a fish was hooked the 

 entire yellowtail village would raise a shout that echoed 

 far back and up the canons of the Isle of Summer, and 

 they would continue to shout until the fish was landed, 

 cheering the angler, urging him on to victory as the 

 game fish towed him about. 



The yellowtail is generally fished for by trolling 

 slowly from a launch. The tackle is a nine-ounce rod, 

 nine-thread line, or a six-ounce rod and a six or num- 

 ber three line. The leader is of wire, eight or ten inches 

 longer; the hook is a number seven, to which is affixed 

 a sardine six or seven inches long. This is hooked on 

 so that it will run well, the mouth of the sardine being 

 bound with wire. If your boatman understands his 

 business he will have several of these all ready, unhook- 

 ing the leader from the line and hooking on another 

 without waiting to bait the hook. If you desire to 

 fish for very large yellowtails your boatman uses flying- 

 fish eighteen inches long — an extraordinary bait for 

 this fish, but a part of its natural food. Your launch, 

 for which you pay (for two) six dollars for half a day 

 or ten per day, is stout, well built, eighteen or twenty 

 feet long, more or less. She is a sea boat, though no 

 seas are generally met with, as the fishing is along- 

 shore. She has a powerful ten or more horse-power 

 gasoline engine, a hood to raise over the bow, and 

 should have sails, awnings, oars, etc. The wheel is 



