30 Big Game Fishes 



The white sea-bass is eminently sociable, and 

 if the angler remains quiet, the passing school 

 will merely divide at the anchor rope of the 

 boat: I have inadvertently touched one with 

 an oar. At such a time, looking down, the 

 water appears rilled with the splendid fish, which 

 resemble gigantic salmon, and often their utter 

 contempt for all kinds of bait is maddening 

 to the most philosophical angler. 



In the Gulf of California a large species of 

 this genus is found, known to science as Cyno- 

 scion macdonaldi and called at Guaymas totu- 

 ava. It is a stouter, bulkier fish than C. nobilis, 

 and exceeds it in size. An old boatman who 

 had wandered up the Gulf informed me that 

 he had caught these fish weighing two or three 

 hundred pounds, but he probably confused it 

 with the Gulf jewfish. There is a record of 

 a fish which weighed one hundred and seventy- 

 two pounds, hence two hundred pounds is pos- 

 sible. A friend who fished for them at San 

 Jorgas Bay, not far from the island of Tiburon, 

 considered them identical with C. nobilis, and 

 supposed it was the same fish; but instead of 

 averaging forty or fifty pounds the fish he caught 

 tipped the scales at eighty pounds. At San 



