SOME FAMOUS ANGLIKG CLUBS 



The result of this was apparent at once. The catches made 

 with rod and reel aroused great interest all over the country as 

 the fish were large, the lines used the size I used for trout and 

 black bass when a boy ; now two hundred and fifty-one pound 

 tuna, four hundred and fifty pound black sea bass, fifty pound 

 white sea bass, sixty pound yellowtaU, three hundred pound 

 swordfish, were taken with these Unes. In the face of so much 

 skill and the new mode, the visiting public began to regard the 

 old hand-line as a rehc of the dark ages. Again, the sporting 

 spirit became apparent, and the public wished to fish for a prize 

 and the little blue button that told the story of a battle with the 

 big game. So the boatmen were obliged to equip their boats 

 with rods of the prevailing weight and fashion, but not for this 

 reason. They thoroughly believed in the good work and the 

 higher standard, and naturally they wished to win the prizes and 

 to have their patrons win them. As a result, in a marvellously 

 brief period, out of the small army of boatmen (the angling in- 

 vestment is now valued at $200,000), one could not be found 

 who would carry a handUne ia his boat or aUow one to be used. 

 It was an archaic device and a man would be ridiculed who did. 

 Presto ! and hundreds of rods, the finest Vom Hofe and other reels, 

 lines costing $3 and $4, became the equipment, and a standard 

 of sport of the highest character became the fixed rule at Santa 

 Catalina. There was no complaint. Every one was delighted, 

 as it enhanced the sport a hundredfold and accomplished the 

 prime desideratum — an absolute halt in the waste of fish. Why ? 

 The angler will have suspected it. The directors of the Tuna Club 

 reduced the tackle to such seeming ephemeral Kmits, made the 

 lines so Ught, the rods so beautifully adjusted to the work, that 

 the man who had been in the habit of fishing for numbers, pulling 

 in, in a few minutes, three or four big fish when they were biting 

 savagely, now found that to take a sixty-pound yeUowtail on 

 the 9-9-tackle took him possibly half an hour, but gave him better 

 sport than he had ever dreamed of. Also, the man who fished 

 for a thirty-pound yeUowtail with a 3-6 rod and line, found tha 



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