i6 FISHES OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



GAME QUALITIES OF TUNA 



Some idea of the qualities of the leaping tuna as a 

 game fish can be had from my experience in taking the 

 first large tuna with a rod. I had taken a number of 

 tunas in this way when, one morning, I had a strike 

 which took nearly all the six hundred feet of line. I 

 think it was stopped at five hundred and fifty feet. It 

 then began to tow the heavy yawl to the northeast, 

 directly up the island, having been hooked off Avalon. 

 During an hour, in which we were towed four miles, 

 I made a desperate effort to stop the fish, but its fierce 

 rushes, its downward plunges, gave me the fight of 

 my life, and, at the end of an hour, I appreciated the 

 fact that I was weaker, and the fish seemingly grow^ 

 ing stronger. I thought of the remark of an old boat- 

 man when I was playing a ten-foot shark in Florida. 

 " Massa Fred, if yo' had to wuk like dat yo'd sho' 

 think yo'self in hard luck, yo' sho' would, das a fac." 



If you call it work, it was work, but, looking at it 

 from the standpoint of sport, to overcome a big fish 

 that had all the chances on its side was a different 

 matter. 



When we came near Long Point I brought it in 

 within one hundred feet of the boat, when it suddenly 

 made a rush and, despite my boatman's oars used 

 gently, it towed us a mile out to sea, stern-first, then 

 out of the calm lee into rough water. When it 

 hauled the stern down low, dangerously low, I had to 

 give line or swamp; in fact, one big sea nearly 

 swamped us and " Jim " had to drop the oars and 

 take the bailer, while I held the rod in my left hand 

 and bailed with the other, watching the sea and the 



