17g 
FOHEST ANt) STREAM. 
[Sept. s, tgo:l 
— « — 
Santa Catalina. 
AvALON^ Santa Catalina Island, Cal., August 12. — "The 
Angler's Paradise." That is the way the advertisement 
read, and the words are enough "to start an angler 
dreaming. His dreams will run to wooded streams in 
the north; to mountain brooks where pure cold waters 
dash over the rocks; to deep, black pools where the 
big trout lurk. The paradise he pictures may include 
the soul of the gentle Walton; dreaming over a book 
in some quiet shaded dell beside some soothing stream 
or penning those quaintly sweet verses still so dear 
to the heart of anglers. But the thought that there 
are no trout or trout streams on the Catalina may come 
to the dreamer and dispel visions in that direction. 
That it is sea fishing at Avalon brings to us the re- 
membrance of Walton's lines: 
I care not, I, to fish in seas; 
Fresh rivers best my mind do please. 
Whose sweet cahn course I contemplate, 
And seek in life to imitate. 
I made my arrangements to spend a few weeks at 
Avalon, and those plans were verj^ nearly upset by a 
picture on a folder handed me by the agent of the 
company which owns and operates the island. The 
half-tone reproduction showed six racks loaded with 
fish and about twenty men sitting within the semi- 
circle formed by the racks; some of the men are 
armed with what appears to be pitchfork handles. 
About half a cord of dead fish arc stacked in the fore- 
ground. The line under the picture reads: "478 albi- 
core, weight, S tons. Caught with rod and reel in one- 
half day at Santa Catalina Island, Sept. 15, 1902." 
It is a sickening and a discouraging exhibit. The 
men look like boatmen. They were probably out for 
a record and they certainly made one, but it is an 
enviable one. 
"Anglers' paradise" forsooth! I decided to come 
over here anyway, for there is always the hotel veranda 
and the white choker and the fashionable hour. 
But Avalon is not nearly so bad as the company's 
advertisement would indicate. In fact, I have been 
able to cut out the hotel and the choker and have, at 
times, been able to avoid the "fashionable hour." 
Catalina is a delightful place to boat, to swim, to 
climb mountains and, after a manner, to fish. As for 
the fishing, it has been "written up" and exploited 
so that most of the Forest and Stream family .know 
the story, and they may be more interested at this 
time in a few observations on the general make up of 
the Magic Isle. 
The Island of Catalina has a superficial area of 
55,000 acres, is 25 miles long and has an average width 
of 4 miles, being 8 miles wide at the widest and half 
a mile at the isthmus. As to general appearances, it 
is very lumpy; some call it mountainous, though the 
highest peak, Mt. Orizaba, rises but 2,109 feet from 
sea level. From the sea at almost all points the hills 
rise straight up from the shore clifTs and are extremely 
picturesque. At this time of the year the color scheme 
is much the same as all of dry Southern California, a 
brownish gray, dry and dusty. Most of the hills have 
a fair sprinkling of live oak scrub and manzanito 
bushes, and these greatly relieve the monotony of the 
scenes. Plentiful sprinkling of cactus are on every 
hand. A Spanish explorer, Cabrillo, is credited with 
the discovery of the island, and the date is set as Sep- 
tember, 1542, 361 years ago. He is thought to have 
anchored in what is now Avalon Bay. Cabrillo named 
the island San Salvador, thus showing his lack of 
versatility, and sailed away, and the name didn't even 
take. Vizcaino got here in 1602, and ignoring Cabrillo's 
efforts, called it Santa Catalina, got rid of a thumping 
quid, drank a hearty bumper to the new island, and 
sailed away. This time the name stuck. Phillip III. 
of Spain gave the island to one oi his generals, who 
never proved up his papers, and eventually Mexico 
granted it to Don Pio Pico, the last Spanish governor 
of California. Pico one day needed a horse and saddle 
more than he needed a barren island in the Pacific, 
inhabited sparsely by rude and uncouth Indians, he 
made a deal with Nicolas Covarrubias of Santa Bar- 
bara; then a lawyer of that town by the name of 
Parker, got possession. He sold out to James Lick, 
©f observatory fame, who later sold it to George 
Shatto. Mr. Shatto laid out the town of Avalon, held 
an auction sale of lots, built a portion of the present 
Hotel Metropole, and on the strength of a wonderful 
showing of the mineral richness of the island, sold it 
to an English syndicate for the consideration of $400,- 
000. The syndicate, after paying almost $100,000, dis- 
covered that the mines "pinched out," and they refused 
to make other payments. The Banning Brothers, see- 
ing the possibilities of the place as a resort, opened 
negotiations with the syndicate and with Shatto, which 
resulted in the transfer of the island to them. 
About 160 lots were sold by Shatto, but the Messrs. 
Banning have succeeded in buying up 80 of these, so 
they now are virtually the sole owners of the island. 
It is to be hoped thej^ may succeed in their efforts to 
get possession of the remaining lots. Their excellent 
management of the transportation system and in fact 
of everything their company controls, leads one to 
wish them success. It is through them and the "Can- 
vas City" plan that thousands of us are able to dodge 
the piazza, the choker and the fashionable hour. Some 
day the Bannings Avill cut out. the Coney Island ap- 
pearance of the front street of Avalon. ,Some day all 
the unsightly stores, shops, stands and shake down 
shacks that disfigure the town will all be torn down; 
a boulevard 150 feet wide will be built there, a sea wall, 
wide and deep, stretch around the magnificent sweep 
of the bay. Some day a great casino will stand at about 
the center of the curving horseshoe, and there will be 
a great bridge from the casino to the broad marble 
steps, which will let the multitudes who come here for 
their rest and recreation, down to the waters edge, and 
to boats and launches; there wiil be a sand beach, and 
there will be no garish, unsightly bath house, nor ghast- 
ly fish racks with their horrid array of butchered and 
imported victims, offensive to sight and smell. But the 
Bannings cannot crowd the millenium. Then, too, they 
are not yet posing as philanthropists. When all this 
comes Canvas City and Island Villa may go, and then 
what of the thousands who now come here because 
they can tent and not cook; where one big kitchen hid- 
den somewhere furnishes forth hot meats and a great 
variety of vegetables and food for the multitude? _ 
There are something like 10,000 people on the island 
now; 8,000 of them are tenting to-night. Canvas City 
alone has about 700 tents, Island Villa 300 more, and 
' there are about 600 private tent houses here. It is the 
most orderly and quiet city I ever saw. It is the easiest 
place on earth to police, and those who might do a 
wrong fear most banishment from the island. We have 
macadamized streets, rolled and sprinkled while we 
sleep; electric lights on all corners, and in our tents, 
water piped to the door, and the most improved sani- 
tary system; scavenger wagons daily and no scraps of 
paper escapes the vigilant eye of the man with the 
rake. Every inch of the ground is covered and cleaned 
daily, and the system never seems to slip a cog. No 
city in the world can be cleaner or more sanitary than 
our own Canvas City. So-called tent cities are every- 
where, but nothing like this. As for shade, the streets 
are all lined, both sides, with eucalypts of several 
years' growth, so that every tent is shaded and every 
tenter has from two to five trees from which swing 
his hammocks. From the top of the nearby hills a 
view of our town shows only here, and a glimpse of 
the white and blue canvas, so thick is the foliage of 
the eucalypts. Streets are named, tents are num- 
bered. Tents are furnished or bare, you order what 
you want from the office; pay for what you use. You 
can get anything from a needle and thread to a gaso- 
line stove. It isn't roughing it; it isn't what we 
have been used to in the Maine woods, but it's tenting 
and we are fishing and swimming and climbing moun- 
tains, and it cuts out all the hotel and summer re- 
sorters. 
One slight drawback, however, should not be over- 
looked. Our drinking water, distilled, costs us 12 cents 
a gallon, and is about the only expensive necessity on 
the island. The hydrant water, pumped to a reservoir 
high among the hills, is so full of iron and magnesia 
that it camiot be used for drinking purposes, and so 
"hard" that soap curdles in it. I am told that the 
company has two wells under way, and that one of 
them is now an assured success, so that next season 
we shall have good home manufactured water. 
The fishing here is all judged by the hard test of re- 
sults. Izaak Walton's ideas are all reversed, for he 
was 
"As well content no prize to take 
As use of taken prize to make." 
Here it is numbers and pounds, and how quickly they 
are brought to gaff. It is butchery and waste. 
"Fish for photographic purposes only" seems to 
apply to the greater number of the fishers. 
But there are gentlemen and anglers who come here 
to take their tuna, jewfish, yellowtail and white sea 
bass, who are sportsmen and do not fish for the 
camera. They are in one class. "Senor X." gives us, 
from time to time, good accounts of the doings of these 
gentlemen, and I have no desire to poach on his 
grounds. Then there is the man out for a record. 
Pie doesn't care how many fish he destroys just so he 
makes a good camera record, but he is not always a 
killer. There, too, is the jay with a hard hat and a 
standing collar. He and another of his sort have 
come over for two or three days, they dig up the 
price of a launch for half a day, and depend on the 
boatman for tackle, and calls the rod a pole. Once 
on the water, a system of coaching by the boatman 
and a lift and a turn of the reel now and then from the 
same gentleman, a strong arm drag for ten minutes 
on the heavy tackle; a killing rip of the gaff and the 
Rube has "caught a yellowtail." He has not soiled a 
glove nor sweat his high collar. Inside of twenty-four 
hours he is back to the ribbon counter with a mighty 
tale to tell. 
Next we have the rowboat crowd, and they are all 
of the good-natured sort. Its mostly a handline out- 
fit, a good many women and children. They know 
nothing of rod nor reel, though occasionally one may 
be seen fishing with a "pole." But they are out for 
fish to put in the pan, and they get them, too, good, old 
rock bass, from half a pound up to 8 pounders, and the 
earnestness with which the fair dames yank them over 
the side is intensely amusing. This class, however, 
never get so far from home as the game fishing 
grounds. I saw a lady hoist from the deep a m'easly 
slimy sculpin. Instead of the indignation, horror and 
disgust I expected to see, 'her face showed only joy 
aitd exultation. 
On the Massachusetts coast she would have at once 
been the subject of ridicule; here she was congratu- 
lated. I found they were considered -a delicacy here, 
and one lady who wore a pink sunbonnet and brown 
gloves, smilingly assured me she had caught three 
"scorpions," and she held up three red sculpins, the 
monstrosities of the sea fish family. 
The sand dabber is in a class of his own. He has a 
wooden reel as large as an old-fashioned well wind- 
lass, and about 500 feet of cod line, a dozen or two 
bass hooks and a modicum of fresh yellowtail for bait. 
He goes out to a given spot three miles from shore — 
he carefully conceals the chosen place. There he low- 
ers his line weighted with ten pounds of lead, and 
after filling his pipe and puffing for ten minutes, he 
gets his basket ready and winds up his line and re- 
moves from one to a dozen sand dabs. The sand dabs 
are an excellent pan fish, range from S to 8 inches 
long, and weigh about five to a pound, and always bring: 
a good price on the market. The dabber frequently 
brings up a large, flat sole, which looks like the grand- 
father of the sand dab, both being of the pinkish white- 
family of flat fish, which lie flat on the bottom and ap- 
pear to be unfinished on the lower side. The Spanish 
mackerel are mostly taken by the inshore rowboat 
people, and though they run small, seem to be popu- 
lar. Strings of fish are frequently seen containing rock 
bass, mackerel, sculpins and now and then a kelpfish, 
the latter being readily recognized by his close resem- 
blance to a piece of detached kelp, the glistening brown 
of his sides and a fragment of the giant sea weed are 
strikingly similar. His dorsal fin ran from the head 
right back and around the fish continuously to the gills 
on the under side. The kelp fish I saw weighed about 
three-quarters of a pound, and were 11 inches in 
length; Mexican Joe said they were "very fine to 
eat." No barracuda are now taken, or I have been 
unable to see any at close range. They are said to re- 
semble the great northern pike. I saw one from a 
glass-bottom boat, he appeared to be about 30 inches 
long, handsomely marked — perhaps recticulated — and 
from the manner the blue perch, green bass and other 
fish were literally taking to the tall grass, he is prob- 
ably of the pike-pickerel ilk. Sheepshead, 20 and 17 
inches long, weighed 8 pounds and sH pounds; red, 
long, protrusive teeth imperfect dentistry and repulsive 
as to countenance; instantly recognized as sheepshead 
by form of head and teeth; food fish. Whitefish — 
taken in seine, 18 inches, 8 pounds, excellent and popu- 
lar food fish. Blue sea perch — i potmd to 2 pounds, 
taken in seine; food fish; myriads of them over marine 
gardens and almost everywhere except where game fisli 
live, jump like mackerel, but I could not tempt any 
to take bait. Bonita — took our smelt while trolling 
for yellov/tail; weighed but 17 pounds; came right in, 
and, as the name indicates, was very pretty; in fact, 
the smooth skin stretched over his round, hard taper- 
ing body showed most beautiful irridescent coloring, 
running from white to turquoise; threshed the bottom 
of the boat 1,000 whacks to the minute; died quickly 
and made very poor food, being dark and strong. 
Saw bonita up to 18 pounds. Not many are being 
caught. 
The flying fish are very interesting, length about 12 
inches, weight of a dozen of them about 15 ounces 
each. They are very pretty when first caught, and are 
valued as food fish, but more highly prized because 
they are the tuna bait. In times when they are plenti- 
ful they sell two for two bits, but when they become 
very scarce and the tuna are running at the full height 
of the season, they have brought as high as $5 apiece. 
They are taken in seines and make good yellowtail 
bait, but are seldom user! because the smelt and sar- 
dines, if fresh, make good yellowtail lure. 
The flying fish, as seen from the steamers, are a 
constant source of delight to the passengers, and are a 
diversion that makes some of them forget the mal de 
mer they have long in advance decided to experience 
when crossing the channel. The fish burst from the 
water so suddenly that one can scarcely say how it is 
done, but they seem to be in full flight as soon as they 
are in the air. They are capable of at least 15 knots 
an hour, judging from the way they left the steamer, 
and I saw one make a flight of a quarter of a mile. 
They soar and have perfect control of their movements 
in the air, turning and forming great semi-circles in 
their flight. I saw none of them rise over six feet 
from the water, and some flew so low that their tails, 
which are slightly lower than the body in flight, cut 
through several blue waves before their plunging 
splash showed they were momentarily weary of play- 
ing the bird. Most of them rose near the bow of the 
steamer, probably thinking they were pursued by some 
huge enemy, and Aew parallel with and then ahead of 
the boat, usually curving far away in their flight and al- 
most invariably flew at best 100 yards, and one or 1:wo, 
I feel sure, covered a distance of half a mile in the 
air. The body of a flying fish is long and slender and 
seems rather square, that is, a distinct corner shows 
where the sides meet back and belly. The color 
scheme runs from blue to white, the back being a very 
dark blue, the sides ranging from a light blue to white, 
and, in life and flight, glistens like polished silver, 
belly pure white. Some of them arose from the water, 
and in turning from the ship showed such an expanse 
of white and such rapid motion of wings that it was al- 
most impossible to realize that it was not some startled 
sea bird arising from the waves. The wings are 
filmy, white, tough skin, stretched over hard spines and 
are about 6 to 8 inches long and 2^2 to 3% inches at 
the widest part, and do not look to be capable of sus- 
taining the fish in flight. The method seems to be a 
quick flapping, somewhat labored and then long, lux- 
urious soaring, more flapping of the glistening wings, 
more soaring, etc., until the awkw^ard belly-fish dive 
back to the briny deep. The flying fish has the un- 
happy faculty of not looking like his photograph; so I 
shall not try to illustrate him. 
The school of whales the advertisements play up so 
strongly, did not materialize. The transportation com- 
pany should be compelled to hang up a sign, "No school 
to-day." 
The game fish are as follows, the order being that 
used by the Tuna Club, shows the relative esteem in 
which the fish are held: The leaping tuna, black sea 
bass (Jewfish), white sea bass, yellowtail, albacore, 
rock bass, sheepshead, white fish. This is not a tuna 
year, and so far but four tuna have been taken, the 
largest weighed 144 pounds, and may be the record for 
1903. They were all killed at the first of the season, 
early in June. I have been waiting a month and there 
are no tuna yet in sight. Thej' are believed to be "out- 
side feeding on mackerel," and are daily expected to 
come in. Col. C. P. Morehouse, of Pasadena, holds 
the record for the largest tuna- — ^251 pounds- — taken in 
1900. The Tuna Clubs oft'ers a magnificent cup to the 
angler who holds the record for three successive years. 
The cup will likely remain in its glass case for some 
years. 
Quite a number of black sea bass are being taken. 
About four per day are being brought in. Thej^ range 
in weight from 150 to 415 pounds, one of the latter 
weight being taken by Dr. Tibbitts a few days ago. 
This was within 4 pounds of the record fish taken by 
Mr. H. T. Kendall, of Pasadena, last season. I have 
been told that Dr. Tibbitts' fish will not be allowed, 
owing to some technicality. The rules of the Tuna 
Club do not admit fish taken with the assistance of the 
boatman or fish taken by a launch having out more 
than one line for each sportsman. 
Yellowtail average close to 17 pounds. I do not 
know how large the season's fish will run, bat the 
fiercest one I know of cost me 23 minutes' continuous 
effort, or a minute to the pound, a portion of a thumb 
