Dec. 28, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
819 
Southern California Angling 
By CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER 
T HE Tuna Club tournament for sea anglers 
ended the first of October, but did not 
close the fishing season, which bids fair 
to be the best in the history of the islands, 
Santa Catalina and San Clemente. The Tuna 
Club alone records ninety-seven swordfish, 
taken with rod and reel and 21-thread line. The 
fish averaged 188 pounds, and in all weighed 
18,104 pounds. 
This extraordinary fish, which Dr. Jordan 
supposed to be a Japan fish, has undoubtedly 
visited the islands to spawn for ages, but has 
never been fished for until the Tuna Club men 
began to experiment for it some six or seven 
years ago, when the tuna became erratic and 
threatened by a big band of blackfish, which 
prey upon this game fish. The result has been, 
it has been discovered, that the swordfish has 
developed remarkable game qualities. It puts 
the Florida tarpon to shame as a jumper, mak¬ 
ing fifty leaps where the tarpon makes ten, 
and is, all in all, a most spectacular fish. Dr. 
Gifford Pitichot in Collier’s pronounces it the 
most sensational of all game fishes. There also 
is an element of danger in the sport, though no 
one has been “rammed" on the Pacific Coast. 
The yellowtail fishing at Santa Catalina 
has been above par in every respect, the fish 
being large and game. The good fishing is 
laid to the fact that the islands have not been 
disturbed as much as usual by the market men 
who, as a rule, loot the shores of these islands; 
and as they are the spawning grounds of scores 
of fishes, the entire region is threatened with 
depletion. A movement is on foot to have this 
spawning ground along the. Government island, 
San Clemente, and the island of Santa Cata- 
line set aside as fish refuges. If this is not 
done, the Japanese alone will loot the coast of 
crabs, lobsters, shells and fish. Anything with 
life is their game, and the money gained goes 
to Japan. 
Anglers at Santa Catalina found that on the 
south shore of the island, exposed to the sea, 
there is a duplication of the mainland beach 
fishes, the roncador, surf fish and several 
others. These are taken at the mouths of sandy 
canons and off the wind-and-sea-swept beaches. 
An especially fine catch was made by Thos. 
McD. Potter and Chas. Barton. Santa Catalina 
is not only a prolific fishing ground, but it is 
unique in the variety of its fish which come and 
go with extraordinary uncertainty. 
The swordfish, the tuna, the long-fin tuna, 
the strange Luvarus Jack and many more are 
found here. The ribbon fish is perhaps the 
rarest of fishes; so rare that practically every 
specimen ever found can be located; yet the 
Tuna Club records six or seven, and the 
writer kept one alive and photographed it alive. 
The rare and beautiful opah is not uncommon, 
and the radiant dolphin is not an unusual catch, 
the Tuna Club having a dolphin cup. 
At the present time the Tuna Club has the 
greatest assortment of cups and trophies owned 
by any anglers’ club in the world. Not only 
are valuable cups and medals given, but nearly 
all the record holders have offered cups to 
anyone who will exceed their record. The re¬ 
sult is, a lot of cups, badges, rods, reels and 
trophies in gold and silver, diamond-mounted 
badges, valued at six or seven thousand dollars. 
Every game fish in California waters has its 
cup, the object being to encourage the public 
to fish with the rod and light lines, thus stop¬ 
ping the waste of fish. A most remarkable re¬ 
form has been accomplished in this manner, 
and nowhere is there a higher standard of sport. 
The Tuna Club has an interesting affilia¬ 
tion with a dozen or more clubs in America, 
France and England to introduce the methods 
of each and entertain visiting members of 
foreign clubs. Members of such affiliated clubs 
visiting the Tuna Club are for the time being 
honorary members, having the privileges of the 
club. It is seen that they secure the best boat¬ 
men and meet members of the guild. It 
would be a good plan if this idea could be 
carried out all over America, so that all the 
clubs could have an annual convention and dis¬ 
cuss the game laws relating to angling and edu¬ 
cate the youth of the country to respect them. 
I have recently returned from the region 
about Klamath Falls. It was said that as soon 
as the railroad reached this region anglers 
would crowd in and deplete the most wonderful 
trout country in the world. In a previous trip 
I crossed the lofty Cascades and Siskiyou Moun¬ 
tains in a stage, making in all a four days’ trip 
from Los Angeles. Now I entered Klamath 
Falls in a Pullman, passed the night at a 
modern hotel, the White Pelican, going in the 
morning thirty miles up the Upper Klamath in 
a good launch, to find the old trout grounds as 
good as ever and the same old droves of trout. 
This might be called the home of the big 
rainbow. My own catches are 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 
pounds, and a few lower than three pounds. 
Years ago when an angler told me that he 
threw back everything under three pounds I 
accepted it with reservation, as I had never 
taken a three-pound trout with a fly. But when 
later I took a seven-pound rainbow with a 
March-brown, and a nine and three-quarter 
pounder with a spoon the size of a picayune, I 
began to believe things. 
I found salmon trolling in the Williamson— 
a branch of Upper Klamath Lake—a most ex¬ 
hilarating sport. My best fish (with a spoon, 
of course) was a twelve-pounder, but a lady 
hooked and played one in a beautiful pool for 
an hour and then lost it. We never saw the 
fish, so did not curb the imagination. We 
passed an Indian who displayed a twenty-five 
pounder, so our unknown must have been a 
“whale.” My eight-ounce split bamboo was en¬ 
tirely outclassed by this fish and by the ten- 
pound rainbows, and I recommend for this fish¬ 
ing a rod with the reel above the hand, ten 
ounces, and with some lifting power. 
I pretend to no angling virtues, but I have 
never—that is, barely ever—used more than 
one fly and should be glad to hear some argu¬ 
ment for more than one. It is not so much, to 
my mind, a question of ethics as of pleasure. 
If you hook more than one fish the game is 
up; the fish, as a rule, fight each other and you 
play a dead weight. 
I fished the waters of the Laurentian Club 
in Canada several years ago and found, as a rule 
of the club, the anglers were obliged to use 
flies. This should be applied in Southern Cali¬ 
fornia. Last April in Southern California men 
camped out or slept on the sand in the stream 
to. at the first intimation of day, thrust worms 
into the pools and “yank out” the biggest fish 
in the San Gabriel. These fish hogs practically 
ended the big trout fishing of that stream in a 
few days, when, if the fly rule had been en¬ 
forced, it would have been extended for weeks. 
The San Gabriel River, which has for years 
been the best stream in Southern California for 
the angler, is being ruined by the power com¬ 
panies, who probably have rights. They are 
diverting the water from long reaches. 
The same old story is being repeated in 
California; the Japanese and Chinese are loot¬ 
ing the sea coast of every living thing and the 
dead shells; the game commission is unpaid—a 
thankless task; experts are rarely, if ever, found 
on it, the jobs in the past years going to men 
in the main to pay political debts, and when 
good men do get on the board, they are often 
helpless and subject to attacks. 
Position of the Reel Handle. 
Newton, Mass., Dec. 13. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Mr. “Moccasin” wishes to have the 
reel handle facing to the left, apparently so that 
the rod being retained in the right hand, the reel 
can be operated by the left hand. There is no 
objection to this, but he will find it a much 
better plan neither to transfer the rod to the 
left hand nor to operate the reel. An angler 
should not change hands for quite a while, but 
should hold the rod in his right hand (being of 
course right-handed), and use the left hand in 
place of the reel, pulling off line or giving it 
as circumstances require. Later, if too much line 
is accumulated between hand and reel, the rod 
can be transferred, say during a pause in the 
conflict, and the line reeled in. Why should an 
angler hold the rod in either hand exclusively? 
No authority should teach such a rule. If the 
reel were placed facing to the left, one could 
not transfer the rod from right to left hand, 
which is often a relief in a hard fight. 
If “Moccasin” will read the paragraph on 
the use of the hands in fly-fishing in Breck’s 
“Ways of the Woods,” by all odds the best au¬ 
thority of the kind, he will find the above stated 
better than I can do. Allan Chapman. 
Large quantities of dead and dying fish are 
being thrown on the coast of Uruguay, the mor¬ 
tality being due to some disease now being 
studied. 
