FORES I AND STREAM 
gling picture staged along the cliffs of San Cle¬ 
mente. I now told my boatman to give the wheel 
a turn to starboard. This turned us off-shore a 
little, and gradually pulled or enticed the fish 
around, and by giving the boat a port helm I 
caught up the slack and by alternately turning 
off-shore I soon began to make line: The splen¬ 
did game was always in sight, and on the sur 
face, the entire school dashed and dotted with 
flashes of yellow and gold. 
Nothing could be more exciting, and as I 
passed, acquaintances in other boats, many play¬ 
ing fish in deep water, shouted exultant encour¬ 
agement. 
In this way, flying along after the fish, playing a 
racing game, I played this fine fish for an eighth 
of a mile; then the yellowtail seemed to realize 
that something was wrong, as in one turn, in¬ 
stead of going back inshore he kept on, headed 
for blue water. So I endeavored to carry him 
completely around in a big circle over blue water. 
I now had him within seventy-five feet of the 
gaff and was beginning to include him among the 
catch, but as he reached the edge of the little 
submarine plateau on which I had been playing 
him, he plunged down the side of the mountain 
with an irresistible rush taking yards of line, 
every inch of which I had worked for. Down, 
down, the reel screaming, he went and out, as 
San Clemente is a vast mountain peak rising out 
of the sea nearly a mile and a half high, with a 
peak twenty miles long, it was evident that my 
yellowtail was going down in the Valley of Des¬ 
pair, as far as I was concerned. 
We had slowed down and were now adrift just 
off the hook of the island, and in ten minutes 
that fish had filched three hundred feet of my 
line and I was giving him more, endeavoring to 
stop him by making him think he was free. But 
this sophistry invented by my friend Potter did 
not work; the line went on and eternally on. As 
we drifted toward the hook we figured with 
mathematical precision and positive nicety on the 
size of this goliath of fishes. The record was 
6oH pounds; the second 51 pounds; the third 
pounds. Joe picked him as a sixty pounder. 
I remembered that Bullen in his "Voyage of the 
A 
| 
r . 
-—- 
— 
The Author at His Favorite Sport. 
Cachelot” referred to a 100 pound yellowtail, so 
I established, in the unfathomable depths of my 
imagination this yellowtail, that was wearing my 
heart out, as a seventy pounder. All the time he 
was boring down, and I pumping, lifting the rod 
to nearly vertical, then dropping it rapidly and 
reeling. 
653 
In this way in an hour 1 had the fish within 
fifty feet. Joe swore he could see him—a silver 
star against the azure. I was an officer in the 
navy for a brief period, before the days of grape 
juice and am somewhat old fashioned, and on 
hearing this I ordered grog to be served to all 
hands. Ten minutes later the fish, a giant, the 
Daniel Lambert of fishes, came to the surface 
like Aphrodite and slowly circled the launch ; a 
captivating scintillating, alluring spectacle. I 
raised the limit to eighty pounds, figuratively 
speaking, and Joe lighted one of my best colored 
“Lords of England,” made expressly for his 
majesty the King, so I was told. No one but an 
angler will appreciate this confession of weak¬ 
ness. No one but an angler will believe that a 
human being otherwise sane can be sent into a 
mad whirl of intellectual vacuity by a big fish 
that had the bit in his teeth. Yet it is true. 
Such an angler would not exchange his chances 
for the treasures of the universe. 
Another ten minutes of untrammelled joy and 
anticipation and the yellowtail, bigger and more 
luxuriant, was now but ten feet away, slowly 
circling; its splendid dorsal in the sunlight; its 
gigantic tail, so suggestive of power, fanned 
the “ambient seas.” Joe was fingeuing his gaff. 
The fish weighed one hundred pounds if he 
weighed an ounce. I was perfectly cool, I insist 
on this. I reeled with delicacy of touch. I had 
seen. Joe reached for him with the gaff. The 
yellowtail saw the move; something happened; 
him on the quarter, the biggest yellowtail ever 
my line floated idly overhead. 
Joe tried to do it justice, but he was not equal 
to the occasion. He, did say, however, “he has 
went,” and “he weighed one hundred and fifty 
pounds.” There are moments in life’s history 
over which it is best to draw a veil. 
THE MARSH 
Free Translation of Gautier’s “Le Marais.” 
A mon ami Armand E. 
"Ainsi pres d’un marais on contemple voter 
"Mille oiseaux peintures.” 
Amadis Jamyn. 
En chasse, en chasse hcureuse.’’ 
Alfred de Musset. 
I know a marsh whose water sleeps 
And covered by a mantle creeps, 
Of nenuphars and camel’s-hay: 
Ev’ry sound ’neath their leaves glaucous 
Makes the choir of bullfrogs raucous 
Leap in the pool and hide away. 
There black-grey snipe you’ll find 
When blows November’s wind 
Of mornings chilled with rains; 
And oft from clouds dun, black or white 
Fall plovers, peewits, curlews, cranes 
Tired out by a long flight. 
Where the water-lentils creep, 
Their necks the wild duck dip, 
Of sapphire shot with gold; 
There bathes the teal in the morning cold, 
And when all round the twilight seeps, 
Sheltered by rushes, softly sleeps. 
Friend, when the haze and fog of Fall 
Extend their monotonous pall 
On the obscured front of the skies, 
When in the city all still sleeps, 
And hardly yet does daylight peep, 
And night hath a thousand bright eyes. 
Armand, my friend, whose faithful lead 
Always strikes the swallow dead, 
You who ne’er at thirty paces 
Miss the fleet hare when he races, 
Come on then, my bold chasseur, 
Whom the long way won’t deter. 
While Pete your peerless pointer-dog 
Follows you through the high-grassed bog, 
A Remington* in your right hand, 
In flannel shirt and hunting clothes, 
Come and near where the current flows. 
Behind this broken tree-trunk stand. 
Your hunt will be a marvelous one, 
And into your gamebag will run 
Mallards and grouse in steady flow, 
And tired and muddy you’ll return 
Home when the first faint star doth burn, 
Joy in your heart, pride on your brow. 
Samuel F. Wolcott. 
*Or Parker, or Fox, or Smith, or Marlin, or 
which ever you use Literally, “good bronzed 
barrel.” 
