THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



It is a regal fish in appearance, very sociable in its ways and 

 habits, coming alongside with small game when ' chummed ' up, 

 yet often as clever as a trout in avoiding capture. This tuna 

 is not so strictly a sulker, makiag off on the surface when hooked 

 at such speed that unless the angler can get the launch under way 

 and foUow, all the hne will be taken. This tuna is said by Dr. 

 Jordan to be originally from Japan, and it is known at the 

 Hawaiian Islands where the Japanese call it Shibi. 



I recall no more radiant or beautiful spectacle than when fish- 

 ing a few rods off the south poiat of Avalon bay in mid-summer. 

 From April to iN'ovember this is a summer sea. The water is 

 an intense blue, and on the day in question it was as calm as a 

 lake. We were drifting, some four or five boats, the boatmen 

 tossing over dead sardines to attract the game. The ocean was 

 so clear that one could see down into its heart a hundred feet 

 where the brilliant beams from the sim illumined the dainty, 

 classic shapes of jelly fishes. Here were lavender comets, with 

 trains twenty and thirty feet in length pulsatiag along ; clouds 

 of SappMrinae — minute crustaceans marvellous in their colours, 

 while countless small and elegant shapes were seen standing out 

 vividly against the deep blue of the sea. 



As the sardines sank, up from the depths, as though sum- 

 moned by Gulnare herseU, came the tunas, the yeUow-fin, smaller 

 allies, as bonitos, or Uttle txmas, and like gems, flashing across the 

 range of vision, the extraordinary long-fin tuna, TJiunnus alalonga, 

 whose pectoral fin is nearly as long as the body. 



These fishes, popularly known as albacores, were in countless 

 numbers, and so tame that one could pick his game, by jerking 

 away the lure from the smaU ones, and allowing the twenty poun- 

 ders to take it. By impaUng a sardine on a gaff hook I lowered it a 

 foot beneath the surface and easily hooked a fish, and, doubtless, 

 cotdd have fed them from my hand. In general appearance this 

 tuna bears a close resemblance to the leaping tuna, and if the 

 side fins are cut off, the resemblance is very marked. Seen in 

 the water, the back is blue, the ventral surface clear silver. 



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