TUNA FISHING 



"hands." No man can ride well who has 

 not "hands," and so it is with strong fish- 

 ing. Brakes on reels do not help you, or 

 they help you too much. They make you 

 too strong, and your tackle suffers. Fish 

 are no longer killed; they are murdered. 

 It requires but little skill to fish with a reel 

 brake, and it is the cause of the loss of most 

 of the tuna hooked at Catalina. 



My advice to a novice who wishes to land 

 a tuna is: fish with a stiff rod and a sound 

 line, keep your rod up, your left thumb on 

 the reel, and do not let up on the fish. Do 

 not use the brake when trolling. When the 

 fish strikes, put all the strain on your tackle 

 that it will stand, and stop your fish with 

 thumb-pressure and the bend of the rod only. 

 The farther the fish runs, the more quickly 

 you will kill him, as it is very exhausting 

 to a fish to travel fast under such a strain. 

 If the drag is on, he will stop sooner; but 

 being still fresh, he will try other methods 

 which are more exhausting to you than to 



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