THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



permit the keeper to scratch, its back, which suggests that there 

 is such a thing as tickling a salmon. 



In these prolific waters, the heart of the Black Current of 

 Japan, that like a vast river of the ocean, flows down the Santa 

 Catalina channel, tempering the surrounding country, the watch- 

 ful angler is always being surprised at some new arrival or some 

 fish which by all rights belongs to the tropics, lower Mexico, 

 Hawaii or Japan. The rarest and most beautiful fishes of the 

 world appear to be fairly common here. I venture to say that 

 almost every opah, or ribbon fish (Begalecus) ever taken is a 

 matte rof record, and the well posted ichthyologist can tell you in 

 which museum each one is to be found. A twenty-five foot 

 specimen of the ribbon fish was picked up near Newport Landing", 

 and I have seen five or six at Avalon, and had the really wonder- 

 ful luck of seeing one ahve and secured a photograph of it. 

 Another was seen by a diver from a glass-bottom boat. The 

 men went down into the long kelp leaves and caught the long 

 sluggish ribbon of silver and brought it to the surface. It was 

 over ten feet in length, about a half inch thick, and six or eight 

 inches high, with a splendid series of vermiUon plumes over its 

 head the dorsal spines. 



In the Tuna Club at Avalon you may see the rare Luvarus Jack. 

 I have never met a person who has observed the fish. It weighed 

 twenty or more pounds, was two feet high — a gleaming mass of 

 silver, with scarlet fins. More dazzling yet is the opah, which 

 resembles a sunfish in shape, but is a veritable moon, with a 

 wonderful and ethereal investment of colours, a disc of silver 

 veiled in old rose. The specimen in the Tuna Club was taken in a 

 net, but a Long Beach angler caught one when trolling in the 

 San Clemente channel. The opah and Luvarus are game fishes, 

 but this is probably the first one ever taken with a Une. 



These fishes, excepting the Luvarus and opah, are taken with 

 medium-weight rods, but there are many smaller fishes here 

 which should be fished for with five- or six-ounce rods. If this is 

 done, good sport will be the result. Under this head I would 

 i66 



