BIG GAME FISHES OF CALIFORNIA 



travel in this fashion is difficult to say, but Captain George 

 Michalis of Avalon has taken a number of photographs of leap- 

 ing swordfish, which show that they can dance along on their 

 tails at least three or four hundred feet. These photographs 

 show the swordfish in all kinds of positions — just rising, partly 

 clear and standing on the tail, rushing on surrounded by foam, 

 — a most menacing object, when it is remembered that the 

 big-eyed game has a sword so keen and powerful that it can 

 send it through a ship's side, copper and all. 



It is an extraordinary spectacle to see a swordfish standing 

 on its tail and coming on, a living battering-ram. It is partly 

 explained by the fact that the fish is hooked and is bearing away, 

 and to a certain extent held in place by the line ; hence, if the 

 angler can hold it, he forces the game to move around the boat 

 in a circle partly on its tail, a sight worth seeing. Some of the 

 photographs show the fish going directly away from the angler ; 

 in this case, the line is directly behind, and the swordfish is 

 taking it in a series of splendid bounds. If the fish is very large, 

 250 or 350 lb., it often cannot be stopped, and will take all 

 the line; but the fishes average about 150 lb., just the size 

 for the angler to fight without the sport becoming too hard 

 work to be considered sport, as is often the case with the leap- 

 ing tuna. 



The habits of the swordfish are most interesting. It arrives 

 in the channel sometime in July or August in vast schools, 

 then breaks up into pairs, and the fish are seen leaping or play- 

 ing or lying perfectly quiet on the surface with the big dorsal and 

 caudal fins high out of the water. Or two will be met swim- 



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