The Yellowtail 137 
angler is concerned, two or three weeks, then 
will come a cessation of biting, though this is 
by no means a hard and fast rule, rather a 
general average in my experience. In May, and 
from then on, the yellowtails are about the 
islands north to Santa Barbara in vast numbers, 
and have come for the season, which is of about 
nine months’ duration. They apparently come in 
small schools, then break up and are found in 
bands of greater or less size all summer; in the 
spawning time in pairs at the surface, refusing 
the daintiest lure. The fishes sweep up the 
entire coast, reaching offshore to San Clemente 
thirty-five miles, and occasionally are caught as far 
north as Monterey; but the approximate northern 
limit, so far as the angler is concerned, may be 
considered to be Santa Barbara, the fishing. rang- 
ing far to the south being particularly fine in 
the vicinity of Ensenada and the shallow bays of 
Lower California. 
As the yellowtail enters the Santa Catalina 
channel the charms of the island of that name 
and San Clemente with their abundant food 
supply capture it, and the actual rod-fishing of 
Southern California may be said to focus about 
the region of which these two islands, twenty 
