TALES OF FISHES 



great drifting schools. They had gone down the 

 channel toward Mexico, down with the mysterious 

 currents of the sea, fulfilling their mission in life. 

 However, different anglers reported good-sized tuna 

 off Seal Rocks and Silver Canon. Several fish were 

 hooked. Mr. Reed brought in a one-hundred-and- 

 forty-one-pound tuna that took five hours to land. 

 It made a dogged, desperate resistance and was al- 

 most unbeatable. Mr. Reed is a heavy, powerful 

 man, and he said this tuna gave him the hardest 

 task he ever attempted. I wondered what I would 

 have done with one of those two- or three-hundred- 

 pounders. There is a difference between Pacific 

 and Atlantic tuna. The latter are seacows com- 

 pared to these blue pluggers of the West. I have 

 hooked several very large tuna along the Seabright 

 coast, and, though these fish got away, they did not 

 give me the battle I have had with small tuna of the 

 Pacific. Mr. Wortheim, fishing with my old boat- 

 man. Horse-mackerel Sam, landed a two-hundred- 

 and-sixty-two-pound Atlantic tuna in less than two 

 hours. Sam said the fish made a loggy, rolling, easy 

 fight. Crowninshield, also fishing with Sam, caught 

 one weighing three hundred pounds in rather short 

 order. This sort of feat cannot be done out here in 

 the Pacific. The deep water here may have some- 

 thing to do with it, but the tuna are different, if 

 not in species, then in disposition. 



My lucky day came after no tuna had been re- 

 ported for a week. Captain Dan and I ran out off 

 Silver Canon just on a last forlorn hope. The sea 

 was rippling white and blue, with a good breeze. 

 No whales showed. We left Avalon about one 



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