Off the Sierra Santa Cruz 



my rod and reel with a twenty-one thread line and 

 pipe sinker, which took it down possibly twenty feet. 

 I dwell upon the modus operandi or statistics of this 

 sport, as to me, at least, it was very singular. 



In Scotland, in Eastern Canada, the salmon re- 

 quires the most aesthetic lure the fly-maker can con- 

 ceive, and skill on the part of the angler; yet here 

 the splendid fish, a near kinsman, a cousin german, 

 was to be taken literally with a mechanism of the 

 grossest kind, though it should be remembered that 

 the method was that of the market fishermen. 



It was a fascinating sight, twenty or thirty boats 

 and strange crafts, launches with engines in the best 

 place down astern, rowboats, Americanized Latin 

 double enders, suggestive of Naples, small craft 

 rowed by anglers, their wives astern holding the rod, 

 and far away on the skyline where it blended with the 

 blue ineffable haze of the coast range the picturesque 

 lateen sails of Italian trollers. 



We were four or five miles off shore when a shout 

 came from a pirate with six lines, each held by a 

 rancher from San Joaquin or Santa Clara. * There 

 you are," said " Doc." " Those blasted haymakers, 

 who never saw a salmon outside of a can, come out 

 and take the record fish," as with a shout the rancher, 

 who was having the time of his life, brought a great 

 bar of quivering silver to the surface after a mighty 

 struggle and the boatman involved it in the big scoop 

 net and lifted it aboard. The wedge of possible 



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