An Ocean Sapphire 227 



Bay, Santa Catalina Island, he sees thirty or more small 

 launches in the offing lying close together, about three miles 

 offshore, drifting with the slow current. These are the tuna 

 boats, and as the word has gone forth that the yellowfin 

 tuna has arrived every effort is being made to make record 

 catches. Each boat has two anglers, equipped with a rod 

 which weighs nine ounces, and a line eight or nine hundred 

 feet long; a number nine, so light that it will not lift a nine- 

 teen-pound weight; yet, with this light tackle, all these 

 anglers fish for game which attains a weight of seventy 

 or eighty pounds, and which may tow a boat several hours 

 before giving up. 



Once on the ground, the water is seen to be of the richest 

 blue, permeated with rays of light which seem to penetrate 

 far down into the abysmal regions of the sea. The boatman 

 stops the engine, baits the hooks with a small sardine or 

 smelt; lines are cast, and the sport begins. Most of the 

 boats are within talking distance, and nearly every other 

 angler holds a bending rod and is playing a fish ; and such 

 fishing (for sea angling) probably never was seen before. 

 Each gaffer sprinkles the water with chum (ground fish), 

 and the result is seen in large and beautifully colored fishes 

 which dart like meteors across the watery sky, literally the 

 birds of the sea. There are skipjacks, bonitos, yellowfin 

 tunas and the common long-finned tuna or albacore ; not a 

 few, not a school, but literally the blue heavens of the ocean 

 starred and streaked with their comet-like forms, presenting 

 a scene bewildering, to even veteran anglers. 



To reach the chum, the fishes came directly to the surface, 

 and as I was fishing for tuna I had to be constantly on the 

 watch to jerk my bait from the maw of a twenty- or twenty- 

 five-pound albacore, or long-finned tuna, or from a ten- or 

 fifteen-pound bonito, a feat which required quickness of 

 action, and which in itself was extraordinary, as hundreds 

 consider the sport of albacore fishing of high quality. So 

 crazed and excited were these fishes, so tame, so utterly 



