SPORT FISHING IN CAUFORNIA AND FLORIDA. 205 



in the bow of a fast launch, and as the flying fish rises on either hand shooting 

 it either to the right or left. A good dog might be trained to spring and re- 

 trieve flying fish, though the ordinary plan is to run alongside and take them 

 with a scoop net. The fish are in demand as food but are more valuable as bait 

 for tuna or yellow-tail fishing, bringing $i a dozen in the season from May to 

 October. Numbers of people have been struck by them. One hit the writer 

 in the neck and nearly knocked him overboard. The fish does not fly but soars, 

 holding its wings rigid and covering a distance of a quarter of a mile. 



At Santa Catalina the sheepshead is a good game fish. It is taken either 

 from the rocks or from the boats near shore. ' The tackle used is an 8 or 9 ounce 

 rod, a 6-thread line, and abalone or crayfish bait. A sinker should be used, as 

 the fish is found on or near the bottom. 



A good hard-fighting fish caught here is the leaping shark, taken from the 

 beach of Catalina Harbor with a light rod. Like the tarpon, the fish will leap 

 as soon as hooked, and for a while makes a very fair fight. 



SALMON AND TROUT IN CALIFORNIA. 



One of the finest game fishes in America is the salmon, taken with rod and 

 reel in the streams and rivers of Canada. On the Pacific coast the salmon 

 congregate in Monterey Bay before entering the rivers. At Monterey, Santa 

 Cruz, and.Capitola they are fished for from boats, the professional fishermen 

 with big boats, using hand lines and heavy sinkers, in water 40 or 50 feet deep, 

 with sardine bait, but the sportsmen using a rod weighing 9 ounces, with a 

 9- thread line and 7/0 hook baited with smelt, anchovy, or sardine. A sinker is 

 needed, and an ingenious device is used to release the sinker and enable the man 

 to play the fish. The line near the hook is connected by a thread on which is 

 run a pipe sinker of lead. When the fish strikes the thread breaks, releasing 

 the line, and the angler plays the salmon, which comes to the surface and leaps, 

 making a fine play. Large catches are made (fig. 10, pi. v). 



California abounds in trout, and the methods of angling are the same as in 

 the East, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 ounce split bamboos being the rods most in vogue, 

 with " E " silk lines and 6-foot leaders and one fly, of a kind depending upon the 

 locality. At Klamath Lake, where the giant rainbows are found, the "March 

 Brown " fly is the best, the fish making a fine play, leaping from the water. In 

 Feather River, Plumas County, Cal., they are taken in the same way. The river 

 ■is swift, and the fly fishing excellent, big deep pools being found everywhere 

 here. A cork fly or " grasshopper " is very killing. 



In the Sacramento, also in the Kern and other streams, the fishing is excel- 

 lent with the fly. The black bass has been introduced, also the striped bass in 

 the waters about San Francisco Bay. 



