CHAPTER Xll 



THE TUNA PLANE OR KITE 



The Judge : For two years you men have fished together peaceably, 

 and yet you wrangle over this fish. 



The Sportsman : You see, your honour, this is the first time we have ever 

 caught one. j 



Translantic Tales. 



TJTNA angling, for big tunas, wMch I suggested back in the 

 seventies, tried off the Maine coast in 1875, and successfully- 

 demonstrated at Avalon, California, in 1887, has been carried 

 around the world as a great and fascinating sport. The Tuna Club 

 established its seventy-odd records under circumstances that 

 challenged admiration. It accumulated prizes, cups, medaUions, 

 until there seemed no end — and still the club record of two hundred 

 and fifty-one pounds with a twenty-one thread line remains un- 

 beaten. Every season sees anglers going everywhere to excel 

 this, fortunes have been expended, anglers have journeyed from 

 England, Scotland, Germany and Prance ; British and American 

 anglers have gone to Madeira, the Azores, Sicily, Australia, in 

 an effort to defeat the record. 



In California the tuna is more or less an old story, and anglers 

 are devoting themselves to the newly discovered game fish — the 

 CataUna swordfish, one hundred of which have been recorded 

 at the Tuna Club this year, ranging up to the two hundred and 

 ninety pounder, taken by T. McD. Potter, aU with rod and reel. 

 But to the stranger within the CaUfornian gates the tuna is the 

 piscatorial pUce de resistance, and all on account of its uncertainty. 

 The tuna is the antipode of the trout in size, but in uncertainty, 

 view the word as you will, it ranks with the smaller fish. One 



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