Qualifying in the Three-Six Club 223 



this rock the boats drift or are towed; rods 

 bending, anglers standing to it, measuring clev- 

 erness and intelligence with brute force and 

 desperate fighting. Thirty minutes pass and a 

 gaffer is standing ready. The game is on the 

 surface, a fish over three feet long, molten silver 

 below, deep-green, changing to blue, above; its 

 fins and tail lemon-yellow; its big eyes red, yel- 

 low, and blue; a noble quarry that comes slowly 

 in, fighting to the last, sending spray over the 

 gaffer as he grasps the leader, then to be cut away 

 and released. 



I had lost my fish after nearly an hour's play 

 with the three-six rod, during which I had re- 

 peatedly raced after the fish at full speed of 

 the eight-horse-power engine, as it fought me 

 two hundred feet away. In all my experience 

 nothing so quite filled the cup of exciting sea 

 angling as this sport, w r here, unable to stop the 

 melting of my six-thread line before a thirty or 

 more pound fish, I gave the word and the boat- 

 man threw on the clutch of the engine, and we 

 raced after the game, the boatman at the wheel 

 following its every move, swinging the launch 

 hard around in answer to my shouts of " port," 

 " starboard," or " steady." The laughter of the 

 lookers-on, the dash of launches trying to keep 

 out of the way lending color and animation to a 

 scene at once exhilarating and picturesque. 



By racing at full speed after the yellowtail 



