Light Tackle Sea Fishing.—IV. 
It is astonishing what a nine-strand line will 
;tand under favorable conditions. It is more 
istonishing how quickly it will part under un- 
avorable. When trying for tuna one morning 
ve ran across a few among a school of albacore. 
Soth dashed about the boat, picking up the 
- hum. The trick was to drop the bait in front 
>f a tuna before an albacore could get it. As 
he latter were numerous it seemed impossible 
o evade their quick darts. Thy would grab the 
>ait even before it touched the surface, and if 
tangled over the water it was pretty to see 
liese keen, big-eyed fish come up underneath 
waiting for a chance to strike. If we chummed 
hem far to the other side in the hopes the 
una, which were moving about more leisurely 
nd a little further beneath the surface, would 
et the bait, one or more albacore would dart 
! :om beneath the boat or out of the depths and 
i eize the sardine and hook before the tuna could 
urn about. The albacore ranged from 20 to 
o pounds, and any one but a perverse fisherman 
/ould have considered it royal sport catching 
jhese game fish; but there were the tuna just 
eneath and we wanted them. 
Time was too short to play each albacore that 
ruck, so I decided to clamp down on the reel, not 
ield an inch, and part the line without putting 
ny strain on the rod. Well, that line just 
ould not break when we wanted it to. Again 
nd again it stopped 20 and 25-pound fish as if 
ley had been attached to a hand-line. Bear in 
find the fish were hooked within ten or fifteen 
et and either brought to the side and released 
r held hard within that radius until the line 
ave way. It is painful to add that after our 
ornful treatment of the albacore we managed 
> drop the bait in the mouth of a tuna and he 
S "omptly went off with bait, hook and leader 
ter taking out about 200 feet of line. 
During this entire morning a man who had 
! >me to the island expressly to try for tuna 
id who was fishing with heavy tackle was at- 
ched to a shark which he tried to land. At 
I ion he was still tugging away. Late in the 
ternoon I met him on the steamer returning 
the mainland and he told with chagrin how 
e shark, after five hours, had whipped him out 
id gotten away. He said it was the fault of 
(s boatman—but then that is what the boatmen 
e there for. 
If a line is marked at 50-yard intervals one 
n keep track of what the fish is doing and 
1’rk accordingly. It is easy to mark a line 
| unraveling bits of white and colored cotton 
ine and tying one of the strands tightly about 
12 line, leaving ends about half an inch in 
lgth flying. These pass through the guides 
idily and as they go out show precisely how 
ich line is taken. Without a mark to indicate 
j ; trolling length it is not uncommon for a 
herman to let out 150 feet or more under the 
pression he has out not to exceed a hundred, 
may in reality make little or no difference 
ether one trolls with 75 or 125 feet, but each 
n has his own notions and, like all fishing 
•ories, the notions are pretty firmly fixed. 
3 ersonally I like to vary my trolling length 
h the following conditions: 
f no fish are in sight and strikes are few and 
1 between, not less than 125 feet, of line to 
e the fish ample opportunity to come up or 
from a distance as the launch passes in their 
inity. 
' f the fish are striking freely, but not in sight, 
; feet of line is more than sufficient, 
f the fish are in sight and striking near the 
it, a very short line—from 15 to 50 feet—will 
I them. 
| t is as easy to troll the bait too far from the 
boat as it is too near. The fish are not afraid 
of a launch; on the contrary, they often seem 
curious to investigate, and one must take advan¬ 
tage of this curiosity. When the fish are sluggish, 
or playing in schools and not feeding, a launch 
can pass over and among them and they will 
simply get out of the way without showing signs 
of fright. When they are alert and feeding it 
is quite likely the approach of a boat of any 
description attracts them, and they probably 
draw near, or at least give it a look. It is this 
moment of curiosity which must not be lost. If 
the bait is coining along so far astern that it 
is beyond the line of curiosity, so to speak, out¬ 
side tire fish which may be aroused by or fol¬ 
lowing the launch, few or no strikes will be had. 
It goes without saying that at any given 
moment there is a point somewhere back of the 
launch where the fish are most apt to take the 
bait. 
If, by way of illustration, at the extreme dis¬ 
tance of 200 yards, then the bait must rely 
upon itself to excite and attract the fish, there 
would be no other agitation in the vicinity; if 
within a few feet of the launch, then the latter 
is the immediate exciting cause, the bait merely 
incidental; between the two extremes there is al¬ 
ways a point where launch and bait co-operaf° 
to attract the fish. As already suggested, this 
point varies under different conditions. The 
successful fisherman almost instinctively strikes 
the happy medium, very much as the ragged 
urchin on the river’s bank knows without think¬ 
ing just where to throw and how deep to 
fish. 
There are boatmen at Catalina who are 
“natural born” fishermen, they will direct the 
novice and it is worth while to follow their sug¬ 
gestions. Apparently without reason they will 
say “let out a little more line”; “take in some”; 
or “you want a short line here, they are near 
the boat”; but there is method in this madness. 
They know or feel where the fish are. Each 
may have his own notions and prejudices, but 
the good boatmen get the fish; there are others 
who are either inexperienced or not “natural 
fishermen,” if they get fish it is because they 
cannot help it. 
I have often seen one or two launches take 
practically all the fish out of half a dozen work¬ 
ing one spot; some call it luck, but the longer 
a man fishes the less he believes in luck; in the 
long run the angler who fishes patiently, wisely 
and well will get the fish; he may not always 
get the record fish, but he will invariably hold 
the record for good fishing, which is more to 
the point. 
Where grounds are fished as systematically as 
at Catalina all the good places are known, and 
the times when they are good are also known; 
consequently it is a man’s own fault if he wai s 
until a boat load of novices, who are just “pros¬ 
pecting,” come in with a record fish; yet that is 
what we all do at times, just sit around until 
the other fellow brings in a big one, then all 
rush for the spot the next day to find the big 
ones gone. 
Everybody who has fished at the island knows 
that while yellowtail are scarce during the spring 
months, yet if any are caught they are apt to 
be big .ones. A fifty-pounder was hooked on 
heavy tackle in March, 1906; therefore the man 
who wants a big one would do well to fish dili¬ 
gently day after day between Avalon and Church 
Rock, but instead of doing so we sit around 
until the big one is caught, then talk about 
“luck.” 
There is a character at the island called Yel¬ 
lowtail Johnny. He works at Avalon and when¬ 
ever he gets a chance goes out in an old skiff 
and fishes for yellowtail in the bay within a few 
hundred feet of shore and wharf, sometimes 
trolling slowly, sometimes still-fishing. The 
season of the year does not matter to him; 
neither does he wait for others to set the pace. 
He fishes when he feels like it and he catches 
so many yellowtail in season and out that he 
long ago earned his soubriquet. There is no luck 
about Yellowtail Johnny’s success. He is simply 
a good, persistent, intelligent fisherman, who 
goes after the fish while others sit on the hotel 
porch, swap stories and speculate on tides and 
weather conditions. 
One March an Englishman who wished to 
catch a yellowtail set about it persistently and 
landed a number of good-sized ones at a time 
when everybody else was out after albacore. 
Again, it is perfectly well known that early in 
the season large white sea bass and yellowtail 
are to be found about Ship Rock, Eagle Bank 
and Johnson’s, just beyond the Isthmus, yet most 
of us, who have fished all those places and know 
every rock and bunch of kelp, wait until some 
tourist who is over for a day or two goes up 
and brings back several big ones. The next 
morning a half dozen launches will “pike out” 
for the Isthmus to find the fish scattered or not 
striking. This happens so often the boatmen 
always get their launches ready for the next day 
when they see a good catch come in. It is 
ridiculous to wait for the other fellow to set 
the^ pace, yet we all do it. 
Even among good and persistent fishermen 
there are few who are so independent that they 
like to cut loose from the others and do their 
own prospecting. It is so disappointing to come 
in at night and find the others have been taking 
fish while you have been scouring the ocean alone 
and without success; yet it is usually the in¬ 
dependent fisherman who locates the fish. He 
goes after yellowtail when other boats are after 
albacore, or he goes far out searching for tuna 
while the others are hugging shore after yellow¬ 
tail, or he patiently works Silver Canon, Goat 
Harbor or Eagle Bank for white sea bass when 
no one else is around, and in the long run he 
gets the fish he is after. It is not a matter of 
luck. The only way to catch fish is to fish, and 
the way to catch the big ones is to fish some 
more. 
That good all-around fisherman, T. McD. Pot¬ 
ter, the “Commodore,” is an indefatigable pros¬ 
pector. With his boatman, Captain Neai, he 
scours the ocean independently of the launches 
and usually finds the fish. He has a 55-pound 
tuna to his credit on light tackle. In this con¬ 
nection the following is worth relating: 
The “Commodore” had a friend out one after¬ 
noon who was trolling and had an albacore 
strike. While the fish was being played several 
good-sized tuna came loafing alongside. That 
was too much for the “Commodore” who was 
not fishing. He grabbed his rod and threw out. 
A tuna took the bait so suddenly and darted off 
so fiercely that the rod broke at the butt below 
the reel and the “Commodore” saw a forty-dollar 
reel and a fine split bajnboo tip disappear in the 
depths of the sea. 
Meanwhile his friend worked away on the 
albacore and at the end of twenty or thirty 
minutes’ play the fish was in view, circling about 
beneath the launch. Peering over the side, the 
boatman caught sight of a second line wrapped 
about the one to which the albacore was at¬ 
tached. Leaning down, he got hold of it and 
began taking it in, hand over hand, yard after 
yard, until he nearly filled the launch with loosely 
coiled line when up came tip and reel as good 
as new. The tuna was gone. Some day the 
stor-y will land the tuna also. Then it will be 
a fisherman’s yarn. 
Speaking of yarns, the Porch Club, at Avalon 
—but that is another story; a whole galaxy of 
them. Arthur Jerome Eddy, 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
977 
