The Amber Jacks 



ing around in a splendid half circle, the line cutting 

 the water and the fish rising with a peculiar motion. 



Amber jacks have been hooked here that no man 

 could stop ; in the language of the boatman, " they 

 simply walked away with the line," then when the 

 end came never stopped; and there is seemingly no 

 limit to the powers of this fellow. 



The angler has a start, the thumb brake of leather 

 stops the run and the big reel begins the pitiless work, 

 and while the jack races it is insensibly coming in 

 all the time. More than once it realizes this and 

 plunges down, and if the water is deep enough, sulks 

 and bores like a salmon and with ten times its force. 

 But the water is comparatively shallow, and the game 

 can only break away and dash off fifty feet to be 

 checked again and again. But it never really sur- 

 renders, never really discovers that it is in the toils. 

 Like its cousin, the California yellowtail, it fights 

 until it is in the boat, and even then I have seen 

 a fish double and send itself whirling out of a barrel 

 into the freedom of the sea. 



The angler can now see the jack as it races around 

 the boat, and the black boatman fingers his gaff ready 

 to give it the quietus. Nearly thirty minutes have 

 slipped away, and the attempts of the oarsman to 

 keep the angler stern first to the fish and the powerful 

 rushes have carried the boat out from shore where 

 the fish has plenty of water. The man at the rod 

 begins to feel that he has earned his fish. In box- 



