BIG GAME FISHES OF CALIFORNIA 



marauding horde up the Santa Catalina channel. I have stood 

 looking at the sea, as calm as a mirror, when the surface, like 

 a disc of steel, merged or melted so imperceptibly into the sky 

 that the line was lost. Suddenly, as though by some magic 

 hand, the entire surface was changed into molten silver. I 

 was a mile away on one such occasion and, putting on full 

 speed, in a short time my boatman had the launch in the thick 

 of it, in the centre of one of the maddest, wildest scenes ever 

 witnessed. 



Hundreds of tunas were in the air chasing droves of flying 

 fishes, which struck the boat, passed over it, and landed in it, 

 until we were constantly on the alert to avoid them. 



One struck me so violent a blow that I fell backward into 

 the arms of the boatman, who pushed me into my seat again ; 

 then, hooking on a living fish which had fallen in the boat, 

 I hooked a tuna, which tbok all my line. One of these fishes 

 leaped completely over the boat of a friend. Another flung 

 itself forty feet on the rocks, and many tunas could be seen 

 striking flying fishes in the air, sending them up twenty feet, 

 whirling round and round like pin- wheels. 



As these lines are written, the Tuna Club has recently 

 given a banquet to one of its honorary members — Dr. Henry 

 Van Dyke, Professor of Literature at Princeton University, 

 the doyen of American fly-fishers and now American Ambas- 

 sador at the Hague. Among the two hundred guests were 

 some of the most famous tuna anglers of the Club, and 

 pictures of their most remarkable catches were thrown upon a 

 screen and the great battles between men and fish recalled. 



.6s 



