Big Game at Sea 



I lost nine hundred feet of this line once in Avalon 

 Bay, which went off in one wild scream of the reel. 

 There was a z-e-e ee ! dying slowly away, and an 

 empty spool to tell the story, a burned thumb to illus- 

 trate the fierceness of the rush. 



The line is going down at an angle of forty-five 

 degrees. One hundred, two hundred, five hundred 

 feet gone before you feel that the intensity of the rush 

 is over. The slightest tension that you have been able 

 to give has told, and up comes the game, the delicate 

 line as taut as a guitar string. You have the butt 

 in the cap of your belt, the slender tip of greenheart 

 bending to the danger point. Any mistake will be 

 fatal now, and you begin to reel with circumspection, 

 watching for the rush which is sure to come sooner 

 or later. But the unseen game is rising to the surface. 

 The first wild bound on feeling the hook is over, and 

 the fish is surging up, sending a peculiar thrill through 

 the light rod and line, exhilarating to the angler per- 

 fectly attuned to the sport and the environment. 



There is nothing quite like it, yet one has the time 

 to observe the beauties of the place its many charms. 

 Nowhere is the water bluer, more deeply tinted with 

 the ethereal splendor of the sky, for sky it seems, and 

 as you look down into it, indigo, sapphire, Labrador- 

 ite, all the blues you have seen or dreamed of flash 

 across the mind, the blue of Byron, and 



" Oh, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue," 

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