34 6 Reminiscences of 



fishes which come in its way, and will strike at any 

 moving object not too large for swallowing whole. 

 Although I caught some salmon with a spoon, I did 

 not find this offering taken as readily as fresh bait, 

 and a large fly would be readily taken if trolled at 

 a depth. 



The salmon come in at Monterey usually in the 

 first part of June, and almost wholly disappear by 

 September, though an occasional salmon may be 

 picked up out of season. 



In a dead calm, or in the middle of the day, the 

 salmon strikes will almost cease, and the favorite 

 hours for success are from the break of day to nine 

 o'clock, during which hours I did most of my fishing. 

 One cannot be too early for them. The mornings 

 during the season are almost always calm and 

 breezeless, and generally foggy, often so much so 

 that one going out from the Monterey pier may 

 have no index of his course but the mellow sound 

 of the buoy bell, two miles out, which at intervals 

 strikes from the rising and falling of the ground 

 swell. This bell I have been guided by, and have 

 listened to so often that, for a long time after my 

 fishing experiences at the bay, I have imagined I 

 could hear its distant soft and weird sound in the 

 stillness of the night, when many miles away. About 

 this buoy was a favorite reach for the salmon. About 

 eight o'clock the fog, however dense, would generally 

 drift away landward from the almost invariably 

 westerly breeze, which would give good sailing speed 

 for home. This breeze would occasionally be so 

 stiff as to kick up a rough sea, not pleasant to one 

 inclined to sea-sickness, a complaint, however, which 



