THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOBLD 



sea in cleverness and tranquil obliviousness to the "wiles of the 

 angler. 



In May, 1912, Dr. Gifford Pinctot, ex-U.S. Forester in the 

 Eoosevelt regime, joined me at Santa Catalina and by nine 

 o'clock one morning we were fifteen miles up the island at Ship 

 Eock, a peak-like rock which rises precipitously a mile off Cabrillo 

 near the Isthmus. The ocean was perfectly calm, and we had 

 no sooner arrived than we saw large yeUowtails in or near the 

 kelp, and the moment a sardine bait sank twenty feet, not ten feet 

 from the Eock, we both had strikes. The boatman unme- 

 diately started the launch offshore and we held the fish to keep 

 them out of the kelp for which they will make. Once well out he 

 stopped, and we played two of the hardest fighting fish any one 

 would wish to hook, and their desperate plays, rushes and surges, 

 threatening rod and line. The fishes gaffed, we moved in again 

 until the cutwater of the launch almost hit the moss-covered 

 rock down from which hung the weird but resplendent draperies 

 of the sea. The water was as blue as liquid sapphire, and clear 

 as crystal. Into it Felice Jos6 Presiado, which is Mexican Joe's 

 real name, would toss a handful of anchovies, at which, out of 

 the depths, as though summoned by a genie, would come the 

 splendid golden-vestured forms of six or ten large yellowtaUs. 

 Over we cast with but ten or twenty feet of line out. Presto ! 

 bang-sip-zee ! and the game was on, without the slightest delay. 



I am not going to weary the indulgent reader by prolonging 

 this fantasy piscatorial, but we continued, experimenting with 

 all sorts of tackle and rods to observe the relative power of the 

 fishes, until we had landed fourteen, none of which weighed less 

 than twenty pounds and some I think ranged up to thirty pounds. 

 Every fish was a fighter in the best condition, and each one forced 

 us to play fifteen, twenty or more minutes, at a rate that would 

 have worn out any one not accustomed to it. As it was, I put 

 most of the work on my indulgent companon by shirking my share. 



This was a typical day's fishing. In September I found my- 

 self a guest of Judge Banning in his summer home at Cabrillo, 

 158 



