THE LEAPING TUNA 



thousands of mighty tunas in the bay at Long Point, Santa 

 Catalina, as smooth as a lake, but not a fish looked at my lure. 

 Again I have, at a distance of three miles, seen this bay a verit- 

 able maelstrom of spray, spume and silvery waves where bands 

 of maddened tunas chased their prey — ^the flying fish — on to the 

 sands. At such a time we pushed in at full speed, and in twenty 

 minutes were in the midst of it : tunas in the air, tunas leaping, 

 tunas skinmiing along the surface, tunas standing on their 

 heads, lashing the water, while over the boat and under it went 

 the crazed fliers, I or my companion endeavouring to manage 

 our bending rods, at the same time dodging this way and that, to 

 avoid being struck in the head (or glasses) by a flying fish. 

 On one occasion a tuna flushed the flying fishes near the boat. 

 Colonel Morehous, my companion, put both hands over his eyes, 

 and as I dodged a flying fish not six inches from my face, another 

 struck me in the neck nearly knocking me out of my seat and 

 into the arms of our boatman, Jim Gardner. There was much 

 laughter at these experiences, and to see scores of tunas in the 

 air in a cloud of flying fishes, is one of the sights of a Ufetime. 



It almost seemed at times, in 1898, that the tunas came into 

 Avalon to hunt us up. Mr. E. L. Doran, who has a record of 

 eighteen tunas in one season, aU over one hundred pounds (none 

 others are considered or recorded), and I were starting out one 

 morning at four or five o'clock, and I had just joined my rod, 

 when a school of tunas rushed in and the flying fishes began to 

 soar in every direction. The tunas boiled alongside of the launch. 

 We appeared to be seized with a ' tuna frenzy,' though laughing 

 heartfly, and grasped our rods forgetting that we were still at 

 anchor. A flying fish dropped almost into my lap ; I caught 

 it and hooked it on and tossed it over when, as i£ by magic, 

 the^bait was taken, both our rods and lines were smashed, and we 

 sat in blank amazement at the suddenness with which the game 

 had involved us. Collecting our rattled senses we pushed out 

 and were shortly in the thick of the fight. 



If called upon to select the most skUful tuna angler I should 



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