Preface 



nine years' history of the Tuna Club but sixty-five men 

 have landed, single-handed, with a sixteen-ounce rod 

 and not over twenty-four-thread line, leaping tunas of 

 one hundred pounds weight. In that time, with a big 

 handline, it would have been possible to kill thousands 

 of these fishes. These chapters, then, may be con- 

 sidered in a sense a plea for light tackle for all the 

 big game of the sea, as illustrated by the methods of 

 the Tuna and other clubs of Southern California, 

 where the nine-thread line and six-ounce tip for all 

 game up to one hundred pounds is now the slogan. 



The chapter, u The Biography of the Man-eater," 

 is of course imaginary as a whole, but is based on the 

 author's observations and capture of scores of sharks 

 of various kinds, and all the individual incidents in 

 the recital are based on actual happenings. In other 

 words, the story is a composite, and the not impossible 

 life history of one of the huge white sharks, which 

 attain a length of twenty or thirty feet, and roam the 

 warm waters of tropical and subtropical seas. I might 

 add that I have taken not once, but many times, nearly 

 every shark in American waters, in the Atlantic, Gulf 

 of Mexico, and Pacific; have watched them in all ages 

 and conditions, and the article is the result of many 

 observations; hence is not what really happens to one 

 shark, but what might happen to any lusty man-eater. 



The swordfish has been admitted to the ranks of 

 game fishes in Southern California, and several more 

 or less desperate bouts with these fishes have occurred. 



viii 



