1 8 Big Game Fishes 



end of an exciting day, explain why and how the 

 fish got away. It is always ascribed to bad luck. 

 One man played his fish three hours, when his 

 heart gave out on account of a recent attack of 

 grippe. The handle of a cheap reel came off. 

 Ananias, the veteran gaffer, who perchance had 

 never gaffed before, forgot to change the worn 

 line. Another angler caught his line about a 

 button at the end of four hours; and so on. 

 Anglers "smiling at grief," yet heaping agony 

 upon the back of patient luck which brings them 

 all their joys. 



I esteem myself a lucky fisherman because of 

 one catch, a white sea-bass which I took one rosy 

 morning at Santa Catalina with very light tackle 

 and in very good company. It came about, as 

 such things do, unexpectedly. We were lying on 

 the sands of a little cove under the shadow of a 

 ridge of Mount Black Jack; the launch was 

 anchored near shore, the boat hauled up on the 

 beach. The little bay was, that rare thing at this 

 island, shallow, the bottom sinking gradually 

 away five, ten, fifteen feet, until sixty or seventy 

 feet from the shore it dropped into the channel. 

 The water was as clear as crystal, the surface as 

 smooth as a disk -of steel. Not a breath came 



