Sea Fishing 329 



often caught north of Point Conception. He is a 

 huge beast, as truly peasant as the tuna is prince, — 

 coarse, ugly, strong, and obstinate. He feeds in or 

 near the kelp, and is a lover of carrion, particularly 

 the red flesh of tuna or albicore. But the honne 

 bouche that he prefers to aught else is a live white 

 fish or rock bass, carefully hooked below the dorsal 

 fin. Mr. S. M. Beard, so I understand, was the first 

 man to capture this monster with rod and reel. In 

 a number of Outing, — which I regret to say I have 

 been unable to procure, — Mr. Beard has described 

 the fight, which lasted many hours. The fish 

 weighed two hundred pounds. 



Since then Mr. Eider has held the record of the 

 largest fish taken with rod and reel (line not thicker 

 than twenty-four ply), a record beaten last summer 

 ('99) by Mr. T. S. Manning, who brought to gaff a 

 bass of 330 lbs. Mr. Eider's fish weighed just three 

 pounds less. 



The two bass shown in the accompanying illustra- 

 tion were caught by me on a hand line. I fished 

 for two days — eight hours a day — anchored off 

 Silver Canon, Catalina Island, in a ground-swell that 

 exacted tribute from a boatman who had served a 

 sixteen years' apprenticeship to Neptune ; I held in 

 hand my rod, with tuna reel and line attached, but 

 had not a single strike. However, even with hand 

 lines, black bass-fishing is exciting and not without 

 a leaven of danger. Woe to the wight who fights 

 the Jew-fish without gloves ! I have seen scars 

 that attest the Sheeny's strength and the angler's 

 carelessness ; a finger might easily be lost in such 

 an encounter. 



