322 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



I think sea salmon-fishing is especially to be com- 

 mended because the fish visits this State during the 

 dullest season of the year. (I speak, of course, from 

 a sportsman's point of view.) And they bite freely 

 during the day. Early rising is quite unnecessary. 

 Moreover, the hills and vales of California are wear- 

 ing spring's mantle ; even in December the bleak, 

 brown slopes of the coast range begin to glow with 

 tender tints, and the turbulent trade-winds are rag- 

 ing elsewhere. Upon land and sea lies the promise 

 of peace and plenty, and the charm of this Friih- 

 lingslied cannot be set down in printer's ink. 



The salmon makes a game fight, but he must miss 

 the ice-cold waters of his northern home. His first 

 rush is not always the worst. Sometimes he comes 

 like a lamb to the steel, but at sight of it sounds 

 with the speed of a stone dropped into a well. He 

 is a past-master in the art of hammering a lina In 

 the clear waters of the bay where I fish you may 

 see him, deep down, shaking his thoroughbred head 

 and striking the line with his tail. As he nears the 

 surface you mark the superb proportions that are 

 his insignia of royalty. Light coruscates from his 

 silvery scales as from a Golconda diamond. He 

 looks what he is — a king. 



I leave His Majesty with reluctance, and turn to 

 my friend the yellow-tail, sometimes called the 

 white salmon. To the salmon, however, he is not 

 even of kin. He belongs, strangely enough, to the 

 pompanos (these delicious fish are esteemed by 

 epicures an extraordinary delicacy), to the caran- 

 gidce, and his particular style and title is Seriola 

 dorsalis. Until quite recently this handsome fellow 



