CHAPTER XXIV 

 SOME OCEAN GIANTS 



" I wonder why they have three classes of tickets in an excur- 

 sion fishing-boat," queried the tenderfoot, who had a third-class 

 ticket. Just then the anchor went down and the captain sang out : 

 " First-class passengers fish, second-class bait hooks, third-class 

 clean fish." — New York Bay Ancient Story. 



fERY warm sea has its jewfish, of one kind or 

 another. All of them are great, greedy, slow- 

 moving, blundering fellows, bass-like in form, 

 fins and scales, and all of them reach an im- 

 mense size for a bass, anywhere from one hundred to five 

 hundred pounds in weight. Why these huge creatures are 

 called jewfishes no one knows. It may be from their 

 aquiline noses, or it may be that they are chosen peoples 

 among fishes. This only is certain, that the name is used 

 for the giant bass in every country where the English lan- 

 guage is spoken. 



All of the jewfishes have a great, wide head, a large 

 mouth, with small teeth, small, firm, rough scales, and spines 

 in the fins much like those of a bass. All live on rocky 

 shores, where the water is not too cold, and usually only one 

 kind is found in any one region. 



The California jewfish is common from Point Conception 

 to Cerros Island, principally about rocky offshore banks, 

 outside the kelp. It spawns about the Southern California 

 islands, but young ones are seldom caught. They take the 

 hook, and so far as I know, they have no special tricks about 

 it, but are a gritty heavy weight to draw in. The largest 



