i4 2 Big Game Fishes 



rush of the fish that the nervous holder of the rod 

 is sometimes stampeded. A fisherman is per- 

 haps seized with " buck fever," under its influence, 

 and drops the rod utterly demoralized. Others 

 cannot take in the fish, and lose fish, rod, and line. 

 The yellowtail makes a number of desperate 

 lunges, so vigorous that there is really nothing 

 to do but to give line. If the angler can with- 

 stand it, then the rod is too stiff for the code 

 which holds and is most in favor. The line is 

 kept taut and reeled when opportunity offers, but 

 if the fish is a normal one and full of vigor the 

 angler will find the latter impossible to reel in as 

 one would a bass or lake-trout, and it is here that 

 vertical or lateral " pumping " comes into play ; 

 and that it is absolutely necessary every one who 

 has tried conclusions with the fish will acknowl- 

 edge. I have seen a novice work upon a seven- 

 teen-pound fish for nearly an hour attempting to 

 reel it in out-of-hand. At the end of half an 

 hour the man was weary, while the fish appeared 

 to be gaining in vigor if the click was a true 

 prophet. Pumping, it may be explained to the 

 uninitiated, is the invention of some unknown 

 patron of the sport, which enables one to lift a 

 deep-sulking fish, accomplished in the following 



