164 Recreations of a Sportsman 



large fins; and by a single trace it hauled about 

 a small skiff, at times in a very docile fashion, 

 again throwing us out, capsizing the craft, and 

 it can hardly be claimed that our attempts at 

 training a shark met with perceptible success. 



The sharks about the islands of Southern Cali- 

 fornia are distinct types. They are long, but 

 lack the enormous bulk which seemingly char- 

 acterizes their fellows of the Atlantic subtropic 

 region; hence are to be counted on as game, if 

 one is so disposed. Assuming for the nonce that 

 the shark is a game fish, its action on the rod 

 may be observed from the standpoint of my ex- 

 perience. At the outset I may confess to a 

 heathen fondness for shark fishing, possibly from 

 having lived in a shark country for a number 

 of years, where big sharks were always about 

 and very common, and treated with contempt 

 and indifference, which, in all probability, they 

 did not deserve. 



Grouper sharks are to be found off the South- 

 ern California coast, particularly in summer, 

 and occasionally man-eaters come in, individuals 

 twenty feet in length having been seen; but the 

 average grouper shark found off the banks, 

 or in August alongshore, is from ten to fifteen 

 feet long and will not weigh over two hundred 

 and fifty or three hundred pounds a formidable 

 creature, yet within the field of the rod fisher- 

 man provided with a good sixteen-ounce rod 



