Reminiscences of a Sportsman.* 
{Concluded from page 4i)3.) 
It was in 1892 that Mr. Whitney first described, 
for the benefit of anglers, his method of fishing 
for Pacific salmon with light rods and lines. At 
that time Forest and Stream said of his de¬ 
scriptions : 
"Salmon fishermen the world over owe a debt 
of gratitude to him for his extremely interesting- 
accounts of sea fishing for salmon on the Pacific 
coast. Though tha't fishing has been known for 
years to a limited number of anglers, he has 
been the first one to exploit the sport in adequate 
description for the benefit of the guild, and may 
fairly lay claim to the discovery. Others may 
have known of it as the Norsemen knew of 
America, but he has been the Columbus to pro¬ 
claim his discovery to the world, and to com¬ 
mand for it the attention it deserves.” 
Mr. Whitney was ever fond of fishing; indeed 
he prefers it to shooting, as his remarks indi¬ 
cate : 
“Most sportsmen will agree that, tempered 
with experience and surroundings,” he says, “they 
have a favoring, between fishing and shooting, 
for one over the other; comencing with the ex¬ 
tremity of boyish enthusiasm in the catching of 
minnows and small fish, and the knocking over 
of sparrows, they advance in more fixed prefer¬ 
ences. I will own that, although I have had 
some experience in the shooting line, my prefer¬ 
ence is for fishing, which I have followed more 
Assiduously than shooting. 
“In 1892, in the month of June, when at Mon¬ 
terey on the California coast, a hundred miles 
south of. San Francisco, and visiting the hauls 
of the market fishermen, as brought in principally 
by Italians and Portuguese, I was interested in 
observing more or less salmon brought in, which 
had been taken with baited hooks on strong 
cotton handlines. This interested me so much 
that I accompanied some of the boats which left 
at an early daylight hour, and as a school of 
salmon had come into the bay, I saw a number 
of them taken, which was a revelation to me. 
These fishermen were on hand for any edible 
fish which might come along, sinking or trolling, 
as the case might be, for cod, blue-fish, barracuda 
and flounders, or for mackerel, sea bass or sal¬ 
mon. Their fishing was entirely with cotton 
handlings, using small fresh fish for bait, which 
abounded in plentifulness. 
“I was strongly affected in contemplation of 
the field before me, and will give an account 
of my experiences in this remarkable arena, 
. where the sportsman’s king of fishes, the salmon, 
could be taken in full vigor in natural food, un¬ 
diminished by the abstinence and confinement in¬ 
cidental to river pool life, at the commencement 
of the long fast which ordinarily terminates its 
existence. 
“To see these vigorous, combative monarchs 
of the Salmo family brought up alongside of 
the boat, swerving in the pull, from side to side, 
by powerful strokes of tail, and never ceasing 
in their fighting gameness, even when struck by 
the cruel gaff, with its following of spurting 
ruddy life’s blood, or until the fatal brutal head 
blow given in the boat. 
“Ignoble and inglorious this ending of the sil¬ 
ver-spangled warrior of the deep sea, whose 
speed through the crystal waters equals that of 
the dolphin, or any denizens of the sea—equal 
almost to that of the fleeting hare on land. To 
see this sparkling form in fresh fulness, in the 
last tremulous throes of death, seemed a sor¬ 
row. Still, perhaps, it was better to die thus 
in perfection of life and action than slowly to 
^Reminiscences of a Sportsman. By J. Parker Whitney. 
Forest and Stream Publishing Co., New York. 1906. 
467 pages, with portrait. Price $3.25 postpaid. 
perish from exhaustion and mutilation in a 
stagnant pool, or. blind and bloodless, gasp in 
starvation amid tbe whirling eddies. 
“I saw enough to fire my hope and expecta¬ 
tions, and from the city I obtained two bamboo 
bass rods of good strength, with large multiply¬ 
ing reels having rubber thumb pads, with 600 
feet of 20-thread linen lines and suitable hooks. 
The bamboo rods 1 soon smashed up, but they 
lasted with repairs and lashings until I secured 
by telegraphing to New York for several six- 
and-a-half-foot steel trolling rods with agate line 
runners, weighing ten ounces. These I found 
most appropriate, and capable with careful hand¬ 
ling for all the salmon I caught, and with one 
I handled successfully a ninety-pound shark, 
which after some time I brought to gaff. 
“I engaged a good-sized fishing boat, applicable 
for sailing, and two men, fishermen and old 
whalers, and in the next three months I made 
forty fishing trips, almost invariably leaving my 
lodgings before the clear dawn, rising generally 
at 4 o’clock in the morning; and from my trips 
I secured over five thousand pounds of salmon 
from trolling—a record I can never expect to 
duplicate (nor have any particular desire to), as 
the season of 1892 for profusion of salmon at 
Monterey bay has never been equalled since, and 
in a few of'the intervening years only a moderate 
number have been found there, with following 
good years. 
“I have followed the salmon trolling there 
moderately during the years since, and expect to 
do so again, but have only met with moderate 
success. The feature shown there is compara¬ 
tively unique, in the finding of salmon which 
eagerly take fresh fish bait in the open sea, not 
known of in other waters than the Pacific, though 
very rarely salmon have been caught in European 
waters with spawn bait. This may be accounted 
as a compensation by the Pacific salmon for the 
non-taking of the artificial fly, so universal with 
its Atlantic and European prototype. Nor is 
there on the Pacific coast any such area of pro¬ 
fusion of bait-taking salmon as that stretching 
over.a distance of fifty miles from Santa Cruz 
and 'Monterey to Carmelo. At Puget sound, and 
at the mouths of the Columbia and Fraser rivers, 
the salmon likewise take bait in the sea; but 
more incidentally on their passage-to the rivers, 
without abiding for weeks as they do off Mon¬ 
terey, and before the ova has advanced toward 
the voiding condition as with those salmon seek¬ 
ing passage up the rivers. 
“In fact, the salmon coming off Monterey are 
more behind those seeking spawning beds. • They 
have simply followed their food supplies from 
sea depth. It is a very interesting sight to wit¬ 
ness the coming in and arrival of the small fish 
and squid, accompanied by myriads of preda¬ 
tory birds, who now welcome the harvest days 
long waited for, which unite them from their 
'before-scattered locations, in clouds composed of 
many thousands, animated by a common impulse 
for deglutition and destruction, exponents of the 
creatures of nature, to kill and devour. The 
small fish coming in the summer and the early 
autumnal months into and adjoining Monterey 
for spawning are largely anchovies and sardines. 
These fishes are about the size of herrings, though 
there are two sizes of the sardines smaller than 
the regular full size. These come in countless 
numbers, as well as the anchovies, swimming near 
the surface, and often cover acres in extent; and 
also the squid, a miniature octopus in appearance, 
soft and boneless, which come in prodigious 
quantities, and, keeping at the surface more than 
the small fish, are more easily captured by the 
sea-birds, although they seem the favorite food 
not only of the birds, but of the salmon and a 
dozen other kinds of fishes, as well as of seals 
and sea-lions, but the quantity is so immense that 
little impression is made upon them, or even 
upon the anchovies and sardines. These schools 
can be observed a long distance off in a clear 
sea, though not immediately at the surface, by 
the reflection of their color. 
“Nor should we fail to observe that all fish 
life existing in both salt and fresh waters owes 
its existence to' an article of food which is in¬ 
visible to the naked eye; to the endless variety 
and extensiveness of the animalcules and pro¬ 
tozoa which the infantile fish, whether supplied 
with umbilical sac or not, depends upon for its 
first growth. This furnishes another exhibition 
of the automatic revolution of the water supplies. 
“The squid is too delicate and tender for sal¬ 
mon bait, although the stomachs of the captured 
salmon show more squid than anything else. It 
is a repulsive-looking object, yet is accounted by 
many of the Portuguese and Italian fishermen as 
a great delicacy, and is served up fried in some 
of the San FranciSco restaurants. By the Chi¬ 
nese it is considered very good, and until late 
years, when the fish commissioners have forbid 
it being taken with nets, was hauled in and dried 
by the hundreds of tons and shinped tO' China, 
where it was accounted a leading luxury. 
“The objections of the fish commissioners were 
not founded upon a fear of diminishing the 
supply, but more from the general protests of 
residents about the Chinese coast fishing grounds, 
as the odor from acres of sun-dried squid was 
particularly offensive. 
“TJie method of securing the squid followed 
by the Chinese was by netting at night. The 
squid was attracted by displaying lights from 
boats, about which the squid-would cluster, where¬ 
upon other boats, would circulate around with 
large purse ndts, and secure immense hauls. 
“I have Seen these squid stretched out on the 
surface of the sea for over half a mile in length, 
and overcast by such clouds of muirs, shags and 
various fish-eating birds as to be uncountable, 
and I have often estimated as many as ten thou¬ 
sand birds of this character on and hovering 
about a single field of squid. Some of these 
birds will gorge so thoroughly as to be incapable 
of flight, and if pursued in a boat can be knocked 
over with an oar, and when pursued will often 
disgorge as followed until they are able to rise 
from the. water. 
“On my first excursion out, from an early hour 
until 10 o’clock I was very fortunate in taking 
in eleven fine salmon, which weighed nearly two 
hundred pounds, the smallest being a grilse of 
eight pounds and the largest twenty-four pounds. 
It is needless to say that I followed the fishing 
with eagerness, making an excursion out about 
every other day, generally finishing up before 
noon, but two or three times I was out all day 
when the salmon were very plentiful, making 
notable catches. It was seldom—not more than 
two or three times out of forty-odd trips—that 
I failed to fetch in salmon, so one can see that 
the fishing condition was most remarkable, and 
no season since 1892 has shown its equal. My 
largest catch when out a whole day, which oc¬ 
casion I more fully refer to hereafter, was twenty- 
nine salmon, weighing 512 pounds, averaging a 
little over seventeen pounds, my smallest salmon 
that day weighing eight pounds and my largest 
thirty-eight pounds. I carefully weighed all the 
salmon I caught, the total number being 320, and 
the total weight being 5,231 pounds. The largest 
salmon was fifty-four pounds, which I had no 
particular difficulty in fetching to gaff, excepting 
in the time given. The short steel ten-ounce rod 
is a very efficient one, and will bear a much 
stronger strain than a heavier bamboo rod, es¬ 
pecially when a heavy fish sulks below the boat 
—and it is the -disposition of sharks to do this 
more than salmon. 
“The small-sized sharks in Monterey are very 
