BIG TUNA 



ing experiences have been mine. Captain Dan had 

 never heard of the like in eighteen years as boatman. 

 No such large-sized tuna, not to mention numbers, 

 had visited Catalina for many years. I had thirteen 

 strikes, not counting more than one strike to a bait. 

 Seven fish broke the single line and three the double 

 line, practically, I might say, before they had run 

 far enough to cause any great strain. And the part- 

 ing of the double line, where, if a break had occurred, 

 it would have come on the single, convinced us that 

 all these lines were cut. Cut by other tuna! In 

 this huge school of hungry fish, whenever one ran 

 for or with a bait, all the others dove pellmell after 

 him. The line, of course, made a white streak in 

 the water. Perhaps the tuna bit it off. Perhaps 

 they crowded it off. However they did it, the fact 

 was that they cut the line. Probably it would have 

 been impossible to catch one of those large tuna on 

 the Tuna Club tackle. I hated to think of break- 

 ing off hooks in fish, but, after it was too late, I re- 

 membered with many a thrill the size and beauty 

 and tremendous striking energy of those tuna, the 

 wide, white, foamy, furious boils on the surface, the 

 lunges when hooked, and the runs swift as bullets. 



That experience would never come to me again. 

 It was like watching for the rare transformations of 

 nature that must be waited for and which come so 

 seldom. 



But, such is the persistence of mankind in general 

 and the doggedness of fishermen in particular. Cap- 

 tain Dan and I kept on roaming the seas in search 

 of tuna. Nothing more was seen or heard of the 



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