344 Big Game Fishes 



On these trips I took a rod, hoping to 

 catch a bonito, and so it came about that one 

 day, I think the fourth of our imprisonment, 

 when every one was desperate, that I ran foul 

 of the misnamed dolphins. I was sculling along 

 to enter a little bay in the gulfweed, when I saw 

 a number of large fishes come coursing along, 

 charging the weed evidently in search of small 

 fry. Quickly taking the rod, which was baited 

 with a small flying-fish that had flown aboard 

 ship in the night, I cast fairly among them, and 

 I have reason to believe that every dolphin in 

 the pack and I say pack advisedly dashed 

 for it. One fortunate fish took it on the run and 

 never stopped until two hundred feet of my line 

 was unreeled, to such music as I had never heard 

 before. The following day, when I took the reel 

 apart to see what had happened, I found the 

 interior flaked and covered with brass filings, 

 which told the story of that rush. The fish was 

 followed by the entire school, and when I finally 

 checked it, they noted every move until I had the 

 gamy creature in the toils. Such rushes in and 

 out, such doubling, such sudden stops, were never 

 seen. Suddenly with a wild rush the fish would 

 encircle the boat, then dash into a mass of weed, 



