TALES OF FISHES^ 



of this last one. That was the end of my remark- 

 able luck, though it was luck to me to hook other 

 sailfish during the afternoon, and running up the 

 number of leaps. I am proud of that, anyway, and 

 to those who criticized my catch as unsportsman- 

 like I could only say that it was a chance of a 

 lifetime and I was after photographs of leaping 

 sailfish. Besides, I had a great opportunity to 

 beat my record of fom* swordfish in one day at 

 Clemente Island in the Pacific. But I was not 

 equal to it. 



I do not know how to catch sailfish yet, though I 

 have caught a good many. The sport is young and 

 it is as difficult as it is trying. This catch of mine 

 made fishermen flock to the Stream all the rest of 

 the season, and more fish were caught than for- 

 merly. But the proportion held about the same, al- 

 though I consider that fishing for a sailfish and catch- 

 ing one is a great gain in point. Still, we do not 

 know much about sailfish or how to take them. If 

 I got twenty strikes and caught only four fish, very 

 likely the smallest that bit, I most assuredly was 

 not doing skilful fishing as compared with other 

 kinds of fishing. And there is the rub. Sailfish are 

 not any other kind of fish. They have a wary and 

 cunning habit, with an exceptional occasion of blind 

 himger, and they have small, bony jaws into which 

 it is hard to sink a hook. Not one of my sailfish 

 was hooked deep down. Yet I let nearly all of them 

 run out a long line. Moreover, as I said before, if 

 a sailfish is hooked there are ten chances to one that 



he will free himself. 



84 



