Rock Cod Fishing in the Pacific. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Last summer it was my good fortune to spend 
a month on a small island seven miles out at sea 
northeast of the Port of Chemainus, Vancouver 
Island. 
My host is what is called hereabouts an island 
farmer. He grows fruit and vegetables for 
market, and once a week he crosses this seven 
miles of ocean to exchange the results of his 
labor for groceries, stores and implements at 
the store in Chemainus, and post and fetch his 
letters. It is rather a simple life, but at times 
strenuous withal. His island is some 220 acres 
in extent and is covered for the most part with 
fir trees which grow frequently to a height of 
150 feet or even more. But the soil is very 
good, and the few acres he cleared make quite 
a good return for the work he puts into them. 
I had intended to fish for salmon, with which 
these waters abound, but finding my host short- 
handed, rather than that the fruit should spoil 
for want of labor, I turned to and became a 
farm hand. Ignorant though I am of farm lore, 
I was able to feed the stock and milk the cows, 
thus giving more time to his assistant to attend 
to the more skilled work of packing the fruit and 
vegetables. But even then I had a glorious time 
and frequent spare hours in which to fish. I 
had of course to forego the salmon fishing, 
though I saw hundreds of these fish jumping 
in the evenings just when I was busy. Cowichan 
Gap, a tide run between the northern end of 
Galiano Island and Little Valdez, lay about two 
miles to the north of us, and that is a far-famed 
salmon resort. I therefore turned my attention 
to the rock cod which could be obtained from 
the rocks anywhere along the islands’ coast line. 
This fish is very good eating, and is preferred 
by many to the salmon, as the latter fish is so 
plentiful and the flesh is so rich that one can¬ 
not eat it perpetually. To the islanders, how¬ 
ever, the rock cod was always welcome. Of 
course as a sporting fish he cannot compare with 
his larger cousin. When hooked, he generally 
makes one furious dash for a cleft in the rocks, 
and if he makes his point, the only thing to do 
is to ease the line and, lighting a pipe, wait. I 
used at first to pull and pull till something gave, 
and I always lost something, hook or spoon, and 
often trace and part of the line as well. But 
by waiting, the rascal thinks he is free again, 
and after a few moments you will see the line 
stealing out; give him plenty, then take the strain 
and you will have him. During my stay on 
Secretary Island, as this little paradise was 
called, I spent an hour or two every day fishing. 
1 tried many kinds of baits, among them crabs, 
clams, limpets, eels, tug worms, small fish and 
sometimes strips of starfish, but of all the baits 
1 used, the newly born of the sea perch was by 
far the most killing. I found it out in this wise: 
I had been fishing in deep water off a rocky 
promontory from a considerable height above 
the ebbing tide, when, deep down in the clear 
green water immediately below me, 1 espied 
some fourteen or fifteen fat perch. I was fish¬ 
ing with a fair sized silver spoon and the rock 
cod were very shy. So I quickly hauled in my 
line and baited with a small crab on a small 
hook. I used a small crab and hook because 
these sea perch have small mouths, and I had 
before seen one vainly trying to swallow a crab 
too large for it. I lowered the new attraction 
carefully down through some eight feet of water 
and drew it gently across the nose of a fat fish. 
It was at once quietly absorbed. 
Off she went and out screamed the line for 
some twenty yards or so, and after a short 
struggle 1 picked her out without using the gaff, 
fortunately as it proved. She was a splendid 
fish. On the brown seaweed, which covered 
the rock on which she lay, the ever-changing 
iridescent bronze and blue of her scales shone 
like burnished metal in the rays of the setting 
sun. I was about to weigh her on the spring 
balance when a domestic event occurred, and 
forty-two small perch fry lay beside her upon 
the rock. 
I returned her gently at once to the water and 
she swam away. I then proceeded to return the 
try also, but while doing so the angling instinct 
seized me, and I retained sixteen of them for 
live bait purposes. May I be forgiven? They 
were each about two inches long, pale pink in 
color, perfectly formed, and with huge eyes. 
All their little internal organs showed up plainly 
through their semi-transparent bodies. I passed 
my small single hook through the skin and 
upper lip of one and put the remaining fifteen 
into a pool on the rock left by the receding tide. 
Virtue—or vice—was rewarded. 
I lowered my live bait carefully down among 
the crevices where, experience has told me, the 
rock cod are, and it was at once seized by a 
fish that weighed three and a half pounds. The 
bait’s brothers and sisters all shared the same 
tragic fate, and in about an hour I had sixteen 
rock cod weighing thirty-seven pounds. 
I now blamed myself for not having kept all 
the fry; but though I angled for another perch 
in hopes of getting another bonus, I was un¬ 
successful. 
The last fish made a dash or two for cover 
when hooked and I had succeeded in foiling 
him, and he came in beside the rock on the sur¬ 
face apparently beat. Just then the hook fell 
out of his mouth. He did not realize it at once, 
and slowly sank into a crevice between two rocks 
not wide enough luckily to let him pass through. 
I reached for the gaff, missed him and nearly 
fell in. He turned, and as he flashed past I 
made a desperate left-handed jab at him. As 
luck would have it, I struck him fair behind the 
gills and, as he rose in the air on the gaff, I 
sat heavily down on the wet mud and both my 
feet slipped over the edge of the rock into deep 
water. It was a near thing. 
During a stay of a month on this island I 
fished for an hour or so, sometimes more, daily. 
I used a light trout rod, trout line and reel, and 
I had very good fun, indeed. I never had a 
single blank day, the best bag being seventeen fish, 
and the worst, one. The biggest fish weighed 
four and three-quarter pounds, and I returned 
all under one pound, as they are bony fish, and 
the small ones not worth the trouble of cooking. 
While catching eels for bait one morning, I 
found one with a brilliant vermilion dorsal fin. 
Him I preserved in wood alcohol and sent to a 
friend in Victoria who was at one time curator 
of the museum there. He wrote that it was one 
of eleven kinds of blennies. 
The island farmer has a swift way with the 
preparation of the rock cod for cooking. He 
scales him roughly on both sides with a knife, 
cuts a slab off each side to boil or fry, and the 
remainder goes, into the kettle to boil for the 
chickens. Starlight. 
Fishing Around San Francisco. 
San Francisco, Cal., Nov. 25.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Now that the market fisherman 
have turned their attention from the taking 
of bass to the taking of salmon, sportsmen are 
finding a great improvement in fishing in the 
numerous sloughs leading out of the bay. 
From Sept. 15 to Oct. 23 the law says that 
you must not take salmon in the waters of this 
State, and as there is no closed season against 
the sale or capture of striped bass, the net 
fishermen were in evidence at every point 
where the fish enter and return with the tides, 
and no fish, except a flying fish, could hope to 
safely run the gauntlet. Now there are but 
very few nets in use, and the splendid catches 
of bass that are now being made on every 
hand show clearly the reason for their scar¬ 
city a few weeks ago. In the vicinity of San 
Anselmo and Wingo, some very heavy catches 
are being made, and the fish average much 
larger than for many seasons. Some of the 
fishermen are complaining that crabs are now 
much in evidence in San Antonio slough as to 
seriously interfere with the sport, but the old- 
timers are not worried about this, as it is 
noticed that they fasten their bait fully a foot 
above the sinker, making it less easy for crabs 
to secure it. 
Anglers are devoutly wishing that a much 
needed rain would start freshets and open the 
bar at the mouth of the Russian River, for it 
is known that the steelhead trout are there in 
large numbers, waiting to get into the creek 
and pools. As soon as the bar opens, fishing 
will be good at Duncan’s and as far up the 
river as Austin Creek. A number of enthusi¬ 
asts have announced their intention of visitng 
Austin pool as soon as the rains set in, and 
among these is the veteran angler, J. B. 
Kenniff. 
A few salmon have been taken from the 
White House pool in Paper Mill Creek. The 
water in the stream is very low at present, 
but the high tides afford the quinnats a chance 
to get as far upstream as the big pool. 
A. P. B. 
