420 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 12, 1908. 
pads. After we had gone back and freed the 
hook, for one can never pull a hook loose from 
a lily stalk, I replaced the No. 7 with a battered 
and bruised No. 4^2. 
\ ou must think the case desperate indeed 
when you bend on that hook,” grunted the Mer¬ 
chant, for in the past he had seen that same 
spoon retrieve many an unpropitious day. “I 
do not like the looks of things,” I replied, ‘‘but 
if there is a fish in a biting mood and we get 
near enough for him to catch the glint of this 
spoon he is going to be hooked.” 
The events of that morning proved that my 
faith in the much abused No. 4^2 was not mis¬ 
placed, for hardly had I cast it out toward the 
reeds before a small pike had it and was, as the 
Merchant expressed it, “rushing four ways at 
once.” I exchanged places with the Merchant, 
who soon captured a small pike. Then he cast 
close in and slowly drew the spinner toward the 
boat. I caught a glimpse of a half-defined shape 
in the water. As the line tightened on the fish 
it started for the middle of the lake with a rush. 
Three times the fish went into the air, shaking 
his head madly, trying to dislodge the hook, 
d hen foi a few moments he sulked and we crept 
up, the Merchant reeling in much needed line, 
d he shadow of the boat roused our antagonist 
to renewed activity, and as he shot by the boat 
the Merchant caught sight of his magnificent 
proportions. “Jumping Jehosaphat!” he shrieked. 
the father of all sea-serpents!” As the reel 
began to wail again, “Here, Onnie, take this rod. 
It is yours and I don’t want to break it!” I 
demurred, of course, but he roared, “Take it, or 
I will throw it overboard !” 
We changed places. The fish had stopped, and 
as I reeled in, the Merchant worked the boat 
forward. Again the fish leaped at our approach 
and dashed away. 
“Look out,” roared the Merchant; “he’s mak¬ 
ing for the weeds ! 
“I know it!” I retorted, “but what can I do?” 
Indeed my finger was burning as though I had 
placed it on a red-hot stove. Despite my efforts 
the fish reached the weeds, and in that safe 
refuge lay still. A commotion among the weeds 
attracted our attention. The fish came slowly 
toward the boat with a bunch of weeds as large 
as a water-pail about its head. 
I came to myself. “Get the gaff!” I shouted. 
“The gaff?” inanely repeated the Merchant. 
\ es, the gaff ! I howled ; “hand me the gaff !" 
I left it in the tent, ’ he replied. We gazed 
at one another belligerently. 
By that time the fish was close to the boat. 
The same impulse came to us both. We grabbed 
and succeeded in holding our quarry until the 
Merchant’s' hand slipped into his gills. In an 
instant the monster pike was struggling on the 
bottom of the boat, while I severed his spine 
with my knife blade. The Merchant sat in the 
stern seat ruefully nursing four lacerated fingers. 
When about to fasten another hook to my line 
the Merchant stopped me with; “Say, it would be 
altogether to bad to hook another fish this morn- 
ing. I had rather stop now with the memory of 
this battle fresh in mind.” 
So we returned to the tent and loitered the day 
awa T O. Warren Smith. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any nezvsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
Three-Six Sea Tackle. 
Los Angei.es, Cal., Aug. 29, —Editor Forest 
and Stream: With great pleasure Commodore 
Potter and myself have read “Gray Drake’s” 
comments upon the 1 hree-Six tackle we have 
been employing in our yellowtail fishing at Santa 
Catalina Island. It is always the next best thing 
to fishing to talk and argue about it; and I can¬ 
not but feel that I have something to reproach 
myself with in being perhaps a little more ex¬ 
plicit in my articles regarding the tackle than 
concerning the fish. This is apt to further 
erroneous ideas in the minds of others than 
“Gray Drake,” whose mistakes are so palpably 
of the head and not the heart that we would 
fain know him the better for them. 
Regarding the work done with the Three-Six 
outfits, at first we did not consider it anything 
at all remarkable to land a’ yellowtail of' good 
size upon them, but since seeing others, who 
always ranked as competent anglers, go through 
a whole storeful of lines and lose fish after fish, 
I began to think the game we have made is a 
fine art after all. 
Like the average Eastern fisherman “Gray 
Drake” squares all sport by the rule of the trout- 
and black bass. I, too, am familiar with both 
of these and did not live in Minnesota seventeen 
years without making a somewhat intimate ac¬ 
quaintance with all the fish found there, includ¬ 
ing the muskellunge. But there are none of 
these in the same class wdth the local yellowtail 
as fiehters. Nor have any of them a similar 
style. The bulk of the fresh water fish sound 
but little, neither do they make long runs. Fifty 
or a hundred feet is about the limit even for 
muskies, and the average angler never carries 
to exceed a hundred yards of line; most of them 
are content with half that. 
Now, the average yellowtail. even when 
hooked still-fishing, goes through 300 feet of line 
at the initial dash and at a speed I have esti¬ 
mated at twelve to fifteen miles an hour. That 
does not seem half as fast in cold figures as it 
does on the reel, which, even if of three-inch 
spool diameter, is turning up enough revolutions 
to put a dynamo to shame. It would take a 
millionaire to buy enough bass casting reels to 
keep going at this class of work. I have one 
as good as I ever owned for the work it was 
intended to do. I use it on corbina and other 
alongshore fish up to ten pounds weight and 
have no doubt that T could land yellowtail on 
it. Then it would be so sprung and the gear¬ 
ing so stripped as to be useless for the fine work 
it was made for—casting. I cast a 2^ ounce 
weight 248 feet with it a few weeks ago, single- 
handed. 
Furthermore, the small diameter, long spool 
of the typical casting reel would spin at such 
a tearing rate during the first rush of a fish that 
I doubt if even the most careful thumbing would 
keep it delivering line fast enough without a 
hitch. The further out the fish, the greater the 
spool speed owing to the decreased diameter, 
and the slower the recovery just at the time 
when speed in picking up line becomes of prime 
necessity if the fish would be saved, else he will 
make a fresh start, and two runs of four or five 
hundred feet each will nine times out of ten 
take a yellowtail from any place he strikes into 
kelp. Any time a fish gets into kelp on a long 
line, so he can work against the dead weight 
iif the sag and current, good-bye to your quarry. 
In handling fish of from eighteen to forty-five 
pounds weight the reel must have some power. 
A quadruple multiplier is useless for this rea¬ 
son and the reel must have size of spool in 
older to give the needed speed in recovering 
line. My 1 hree-Six reel is the smallest of any 
in use, No. 1, spool diameter, 214 inches, and 
I am very careful to keep it jamful of line, which 
necessitates a considerable core of old line 
underneath. 
We use 900 feet of six-thread line and find 
that none too much. Some is broken off each 
day, and a line of that length can be turned 
where a 6oo-foot length would speedily become 
too short. It is seldom a yellowtail gets out 
over 600 feet of line, but that is because we 
make a practice of following them with the 
boat. Otherwise, I doubt if some of them could 
be stopped even with a nine-thread line. Certain 
fish seem to be driven into a frenzy when hard 
strain is put on them; these submit much more 
readily to continued light pressure. They can 
be turned and led out to sea behind the launch 
like lambs to the slaughter, but let the angler 
begin “roughing” them even a little and the 
furniture smashing begins. 
Maybe some day the God of angling will be 
good to me and put “Gray Drake” alongside on 
a yellowtail with 300 feet of six-strand line, 
which as he rightly argues, will enforce killing 
the fish on the rod. And killing the rod, too. 
As a matter of fact we always kill fish on the 
rod with Three-Six tackle; cannot do it any 
other way. The spring of the rod is the only 
thing that saves the line from the tremendous 
suiges and heavy blows a sounding yellowtail 
gives. From strike to gaff the little rod is al¬ 
ways up at an angle of forty-five degrees. 
Lower it but an instant and the line melts away 
like a thread dipped in acid. 
Mv catting reel will hold 900 feet of six- 
thread line. A reel to hold a little over 300 feet 
would be one-third the size. Mine has a ijj 
inch spool. The reel “Gray Drake” is recom¬ 
mending would be a fit watch charm for a yel- 
lowtail, but it would not charm him in any other 
way. 
Most of my remarks have dealt with hook¬ 
ing yellowtail still-fishing. The angler has his 
best chance under such conditions, as he picks 
up the fish within ten yards of the boat usually 
and has the benefit of fighting his fish on a short 
lme. Trolling is another story. There the bait 
is dragged behind a moving launch from 100 to 
150 feet, the fish strikes at full speed and the 
launch is under way. 1 hree or four hundred 
feet of line melt into the sea with a hiss before 
the boat can be brought to and the fish is still 
to be stopped. Then the game calls for the 
acme of the expert’s skill. Inch by inch and 
foot by foot the line must be retrieved, if pos¬ 
sible, so gently that the fish is* content to rest 
a minute or two. Meanwhile the boat is creep¬ 
ing to seaward of him and the gentle strain of 
the sag of line is slowly steering the big fellow’s 
head around, and then comes the time when 
victory perches on the shoulders of luck. If 
the fish takes his medicine kindly and starts lead¬ 
ing to sea all well and good, but if he tears off 
madly inshore, shaking his head, the case be¬ 
comes almost hopeless. Kelp lies that way and 
probable freedom, but your true angler is no 
quitter, and if the current permits the boat will 
