Big Game at Sea 



fess that I took a turn about the seat with my line, 

 so that my valuable reel would stay by the boat, and 

 prepared to kick off my canvas shoes for a swim, 

 but the first sea that came menacing in he whirled the 

 skiff about and we went over it like a bird. I have 

 been spilled out of a dory by a smaller sea. Then, 

 instead of pulling off again, he pulled diagonally out 

 and after riding several big seas, made the channel 

 in a manner so skillful that I never again thought 

 of capsizing when with him. 



The California boatmen and gaffers are well in 

 line, so far as ability is concerned, with their Eastern 

 representatives, and there is, especially in Northern 

 California, more of a foreign sprinkling. Along the 

 St. Lawrence many of the men are part French, or 

 have French ancestors of the old voyageur's type, 

 while in California we find among the fishermen many 

 Venetians, Italians, and Portuguese. But the actual 

 gaffers and boatmen to anglers are in Southern Cali- 

 fornia, are in the main Americans, and men of skill, 

 intelligence and pluck. Harry Elms was a boatman 

 to Mr. John Woods, of Los Angeles, when he played 

 a tuna seven hours; then the angler gave out and 

 Elms took the rod and it was supposed that a fresh 

 man could bring the fish to gaff at once, but it is the 

 unexpected which happens. Elms worked, single- 

 handed and alone, for nearly seven hours to save his 

 patron's tuna. It was necessary for the angler to 

 go in and he was taken off, Elms refusing to give up 



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