BIG GAME FISHES OF CALIFORNIA 



the best known. They now joined the fishermen, and every 

 bait that was cast into the placid waters was seized by a yellow- 

 tail. A more exciting, dramatic scene than that enacted in 

 the next twenty minutes I have rarely, if ever, seen. The big 

 hand-lines were broken like thread. I should not have be- 

 lieved it had I not tried the experiment, as I secured a line 

 and joined the fishermen — ^my first, and I think my last, 

 experience with a hand-line at Avalon Bay. 



The rod I had was the first ever taken to Santa Catalina, 

 and when I took it out of the case that night, having in the 

 meantime secured the services of the only boatman, Mexican 

 Joe, that worthy informed me that he had never seen such a 

 contrivance, and laughed when I expressed the opinion that 

 I could take yellowtails with it ; and Mexican Joe's laughter 

 is of no uncertain timbre. I had a common black-bass vul- 

 canite reel and an E trout-line ; and a day later I was trolling 

 along the rocky coast of Santa Catalina. 



It was not long before I had a strike, and Jos^ Felice Presiado 

 stopped rowing that he might enjoy the wreck of that little rod. 

 But, to his amazement, the big yellowtail was conquered in 

 about twenty minutes, and Joe was so fascinated that he begged 

 to try it, and promptly broke the tip. To-day Mexican Joe's 

 launch is equipped with the lightest tackle, and a man who 

 would use a hand-line is outside the pale of respectable society, 

 at least in the Vale of Avalon. 



Joe lived in a canon, beneath several large cottonwoods, 

 three miles from Avalon. He rowed down every morning 

 in his big broad-beamed rowboat, picked me up, then would 



173 



