324 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



even at the risk of breaking the line. For this 

 reason slightly stouter tackle than that used for 

 salmon is necessary. The first rush is always 

 magnificent, and the reel sings shrilly, high up 

 in alt. I myself use a twelve-foot rod, light and 

 flexible, that describes under pressure the most 

 enchanting parabola. The rods sold as yellow-tail 

 rods in San Francisco and Los Angeles would serve 

 excellently well as gaff-handles, but they are poles, 

 nothing more nor less, and most singularly ill- 

 adapted to the uses to which they are put. They 

 are so short and stiff that a fish smartly turning 

 will snap a twenty-four ply line as if it were 

 thread. I believe my rod was the longest ever 

 seen upon Avalon beach, but many good sportsmen 

 expressed approval of it. My brother used a light 

 lance-wood rod, some nine feet long, which was in- 

 expensive and effective. Yellow-tail tackle — rods, 

 reels, lines, and hooks — can be bought in Avalon. 

 No first-class articles, however, are kept in stock. 



These fish vary greatly in weight, running from 

 fifteen to sixty and even seventy pounds. We used 

 eighteen-ply line, but fifteen, I am convinced, is the 

 sportsman's size, and of this, five hundred feet are 

 amply sufficient. After the first mad rush the fish 

 generally heads toward the boat ; you think he is 

 off the hook, but are soon most agreeably undeceived. 

 As a rule, he resorts immediately to sounding and 

 sulking. Under firm pressure he will surface, and 

 sound again, repeating these tactics till he has ex- 

 hausted both himself and you. So savagely does he 

 sound that most fishermen wear a specially con- 

 structed belt, an abdominal protector that holds 



