THE LEAPING TUNA 



in regard to size of line I entered my tuna in this prize fishing contest. 



' In regard to your question as to whether I could have landed this 

 fish with a ntimber 24-line, I do not think it could have been done, al- 

 though I believe now that a three hundred to three hundred and fifty 

 pounder can be landed on a 24-line provided he is well handled. 



' Next year I hope to try and land an Atlantic tuna on a 24-line. I 

 shall have one of my rods set up with a 24-Iine and use the lighter line if 

 I see a school of small tuna.' 



The tunas are tlie most uncertain and erratic of fishes. World 

 wanderers, they come and go without any set rules. At Santa 

 Catalina when the record was taken they were all caught prac- 

 tically in the same locality between Avalon and Long Point, a 

 distance of four miles, before the net fishermen drove them away. 

 They drove the flying fish into the bay and could be found here 

 any morning from June 15th to August 15th. Suddenly they 

 changed, and for several years have neglected this locality, lying 

 off the island to the southeast about six miles in what is called 

 the ' doldrums ' — ^an offshore lee. Here they were taken at 

 times with ease ; again they would ignore the angler and pass 

 him by. At such time we would hear of them at Melbourne, or at 

 San Clemente, or they would be taken off the New Jersey coast 

 ten or twenty miles, devastating the food fish at the mouth of the 

 St. Lawrence, or caught as tunny in the Mediterranean, invoked 

 with processions and prayers. 



The leaping tuna, which I named on account of its leaps when 

 feeding, not on the line, is one of several which Dr. David Starr 

 Jordan, the eminent authority on fishes, now includes in the 

 genus Thunnus. The leaping tuna, T. thynnus, is the largest. It 

 is the horse mackerel of New England, the tunny of the Mediter- 

 ranean, and is a giant cousin of the mackerel. It comes into 

 Santa CataUna waters near shore in spring to spawn, and is taken 

 with a No. 21-ltne, sixteen-ounce rod of split bamboo, ironwood 

 or greenheart, and big reel of the Edwin Vom Hofe type, now so 

 beautifully made that they compare with a watch in the nicety 

 of their works. They hold six hundred feet of wet hne and have 



lOI 



