BIG TUNA 



seasons. During the present season, to be exact, I 

 caught twenty-two. This is no large number for 

 two months' fishing. Boschen caught about one 

 hundred; Jump, eighty-four; Hooper, sixty. Among 

 these tuna I fought were three that stand out 

 strikingly. One seventy-three-pounder took fifty 

 minutes of hard fighting to subdue; a ninety-one- 

 pounder took one hour fifty; and the third, after 

 two hours and fifty minutes, got away. It seems, 

 and was proved later, that the number fifty figured 

 every time I hooked one of the long, slim, hard- 

 fighting male tuna. 



Beginning late in June, for six weeks tuna were 

 caught almost every day, some days a large number 

 being taken. But big ones were scarce. Then one 

 of the Tuna Club anglers began to bring in tuna 

 that weighed well over one hundred pounds. This 

 fact inspired all the anglers. He would slip out 

 early in the morning and return late at night. No- 

 body knew where his boatman was finding these 

 fish. More than one boatman tried to follow him, 

 but in vain. Quite by accident it was discovered 

 that he ran up on the north side of the island, clear 

 round the west end. When he was discovered on 

 the west side he at once steered toward Clemente 

 Island, evidently hoping to mislead his followers. 

 This might have succeeded but for the fact that 

 both Bandini and Adams hooked big tuna before 

 they had gone a mile. Then the jig was up. That 

 night Adams came in with a one-hundred-and- 

 twenty- and a one-hundred-and-thirty-six-pound 

 tuna, and Bandini brought the record for this season 

 — one hundred and forty-nine pounds. 



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