A Sportsman 313 



Two of the largest sharks known in any waters 

 are occasionally seen off the bay the whale shark 

 and the basking, weighing tons. The former is seen 

 rarely, but the latter often. Neither of these is 

 known as a man-eater. 



It is necessary from the Monterey pier to row off 

 two or three miles to reach the salmon, and some- 

 times farther, and the sea is not always smooth, 

 oftentimes too rough for those inclined to sea-sick- 

 ness, and the mornings are generally foggy, but clear 

 up before noon, when the prevailing west wind comes 

 up, which enables one to sail back to the pier. 



It is necessary ordinarily to sink the baited hook 

 from thirty to forty feet below the surface, and some- 

 times lower. This requires a sinker of four or five 

 ounces in weight to keep down the hook, when rowing 

 the boat at a speed of about a mile and a half an hour. 

 I found the sinker an inconvenience in the free playing 

 of the fish, and devised a method to free it by fast- 

 ening it to a short piece of extra line, which I attached 

 to my main one, by a peculiar bow-knot, thirty or 

 forty feet from the hook, so that I could detach it 

 by a hard pull, as I reeled in after the strike; as the 

 salmon when first hooked at a depth almost invariably 

 remains below for a while, without commencing its 

 wild runs away, which occur when thoroughly alarmed 

 at being brought up near the surface. The first 

 action is generally of violent head-shaking to detach 

 the irritating hook, and by this head-shaking, communi- 

 cated along the line and rod to the fisherman, he is 

 aware of a salmon being on, rather than another fish, 

 and as he immediately and steadily reels up, the bow 

 line-attachment of the sinker is brought alongside of 



