PREFACE 



THESE stories are mainly the author's experiences 

 with big game at sea in many waters. Fifty years 

 ago graining the big ray or devil-fish was the sport 

 of sports along the Carolinas, and it is being revived 

 by men who like a dash of spice with their pastimes. 

 The big ray is now taken nearly every season on the 

 gulf coast of Florida, and at Aransas Pass, where an 

 extraordinary contest took place in 1906: a ray swim- 

 ming off with fourteen boats before it was killed. 

 Yet the " Giant Ray Club," suggested last year, to 

 be composed of men who have taken the huge fish, 

 produced less than a dozen men who had accom- 

 plished the feat, though doubtless a more extended 

 canvass would develop others. The various rod 

 catches herein described illustrate the work accom- 

 plished by the Tuna and other clubs for a higher 

 standard of sport, as on the Pacific slope. At Santa 

 Catalina especially, game fishes up to one hundred 

 pounds are now taken with what is known as a num- 

 ber nine-thread line ; the tip of the rod not less than 

 five feet long, and weighing not over six ounces, while 

 the members of the Tuna Club have for years tak^n 

 all their great record fishes on twenty-one-thread lines ; 

 the idea being to give all large fishes the advantage 

 and reduce the catch to the limit of actual size. In the 



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