TALES OF FISHES 



sought other industry. It was a fact, and a great 

 pleasure, that an angler could go out for tuna with- 

 out encountering a single market boat on the sea. 

 Maybe the albacore did not come this year; maybe 

 they were mostly all caught; maybe they were 

 growing shyer of boats; at any event, they were 

 scarce, and the reason seems easy to see. 



It was significant that the broadbill swordfish did 

 not return to Avalon in 1918, as in former years. 

 I saw only one in two months roaming the ocean. 

 A few were seen. Not one was caught during my 

 stay on the island. Many boatmen and anglers be- 

 lieve that the broadbills follow the albacore. It 

 seems safe to predict that when the albacore cease 

 to come to Catalina there will not be any fishing for 

 the great flat-sworded Xiphias. 



The worst that came to pass in 1918, from an 

 angler's viewpoint, was that the market fishermen 

 found a way to net the blue-fin tuna, both lai^e 

 and small. All I could learn was that the nets 

 were lengthened and deepened. The Japs got into 

 the great schools of large tuna which appeared off 

 Anacapa Island and netted tons and tons of hundred- 

 pound tuna. These schools drifted on down the 

 middle of the Clemente Channel, and I was the 

 lucky fellow who happened to get among them for 

 one memorable day. 



Take it all in all, my gloomy prophecies of other 

 years were substantiated in 1918, especially in re- 

 gard to the devastated kelp-beds; but there have 

 been a few silver rifts in the black cloud, and it 

 seems well to end this book with mention of brighter 

 things. 



258 



