Sept, ii, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
419 
Tuna Fishing at Avalon. 
Avalon, Cal., Aug. 20. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: If ever a town was angling crazy, 
now is the time, and this is the place. Since 
Brode brought the first tuna in five years to 
gaff every boatman on the island has been busy 
from daylight until long after dark, and the 
launches are scattering widely, for no one can 
say where the fish will rise next. A shout that 
they are seen jumping off Pebbly Beach sends 
the few anglers that are ashore scurrying. Hav¬ 
ing waited five years for the present oppor¬ 
tunity, these men are determined to make the 
most of it. 
Thus far C. G. Conn has the honors, he hav¬ 
ing taken three fish Aug. 23, among them the 
largest of the season, 129 pounds, the others 
no each, one being landed in ten minutes, 
which is the quickest time to date. 
The third man to qualify was that veteran 
big-game sea fisherman, L. G. Murphy, who 
holds the black sea bass and light tackle tarpon 
size records. With E. J. Polkinhorn in Tad 
Gray’s launch they located a school of tuna on 
the steamer course about seven miles out into 
the channel from Avalon, and Murphy hooked 
one shortly after 7 o’clock. Fighting his fish 
in the hammer-and-tongs style characteristic of 
the man, Murphy brought him alongside in 
fifteen minutes and weighed him in at no 
pounds. Murphy fights a fish harder than any¬ 
one else here. He is left-handed and mounts 
his reels with the handle to the left with reel 
on top, thus getting his good right arm well 
out toward the fair leader guide for additional 
leverage in “pumping” up a fish. He never 
gives an instant’s rest, but hammers the fish 
from the strike and often has him whipped 
before the quarry fully realizes what he has 
tackled. Murphy is tall and raw-boned, with the 
rough, tough strength of one of the old shell- 
bark hickories that his rods came out of, and 
has endurance born of almost continual train¬ 
ing in fighting big fish that gives him an im¬ 
mense advantage over any softer man. Tuna 
fishing is a test of physical strength fully as 
much as of angling ability. 
E. G. Judah raised a school off Church Rock 
and quickly fastened to one, the fish leading the 
launch for an hour and a half before Judah 
could get in his prize, in pounds. 
Mrs. General Barrett, whose deceased hus¬ 
band was an enthusiastic tuna angler, hooked 
three fish. Two did not remain; the third 
struck hard, and she was handling it in very 
good shape, according to Verra, when the me¬ 
chanical drag in the reel gave way, the line 
parted and the fish was gone. 
On the 23d Conn raised a school off Pebbly 
Beach. Two weighed no pounds and one 129, 
the biggest yet. 
Later on Arthur Jerome Eddy had several 
strikes and finally boated one of no pounds. 
Tuna fishermen are using a six-foot leader 
and doubling back the line, whipping the knots 
so they will slide through the large guides em¬ 
ployed in this fishing. It is well to tie a double 
water knot in the end of the loop and bring 
four strands into bearing on the swivel. All 
the precautions the rules allow are none too 
many. The tackle used is powerful, but so is 
the fish—Brode’s led the launch fourteen miles. 
The rods sold, those which meet the specifica¬ 
tions, are nearly all good, serviceable tools. 
Old-time tuna fishermen desirous of coming 
now will find accommodations of all sorts much 
better at Catalina Island than ever before, the 
boats being improved, a well-informed set of 
boatmen in readiness, mostly rough and ready 
fellows who are close observers and thorough 
masters of their chosen profession. They work 
hard for their patrons, and I have seen very 
TARPON LEAPING. 
few men who left the island at all dissatisfied 
this year. These fellows are a decidedly higher 
class lot than one will meet along the Gulf 
coast; some are college graduates who like the 
open, free life. 
A Pasadena youth, B. B. Atterbury, broke the 
light tackle jewfish record, 270 pounds being the 
weight of his fish. P. S. O’Mara, who has had 
several tuna strikes, held the former jewfish 
record, 240 pounds. 
Aug. 30.—Phil. S. O’Mara and his wife, who 
is as expert as he, have been fishing nearly all 
the present year, opening at Aransas on tarpon 
and coming here for yellowtail later. O’Mara 
went out the afternoon of Aug. 25 and trolled 
down to the east end of the island. Just at 
dusk he hooked a lusty fish which began tow¬ 
ing the boat out to sea. Some twelve miles 
from the point where it was hooked, O’Mara 
finally hove the fish alongside and Danielson 
gaffed it. The tuna weighed 133 pounds when 
brought ashore a couple of hours later. They 
had fought it about four hours and a half. 
Ross Kirkpatrick, of this city, landed one of 
128 pounds after a three hour tussle. A. C. 
Tyler, of New York, landed a tuna of 117 
pounds. C. C. Bowerman, of Monrovia, caught 
a tuna weighing no pounds. Roy Burbank, 
with his wife, was trolling about 4 o’clock one 
afternoon when he found himself fast to some¬ 
thing. The fight lasted until 1 o’clock in the 
morning when Burbank, who was about all in, 
lost his fish. 
Mrs. William Frederickson had a tussle with 
a tuna Tuesday, but lost it. 
Edwin L. Hedderly. 
The Tarpon’s Leap. 
Babylon, L. I., Aug. 28.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have fished at Boca Grande, west 
coast of Florida, for tarpon on two occasions, 
having had good success, taking five in one tide 
and landing three. I have seen as many as 
twenty-one tarpon killed in one day. My ob¬ 
servations of the tarpon’s leap is only a few feet 
above the water, possibly four to six. 
C. D. B. Wagstaff. 
St. Petersburg, Fla., Sept. 1 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: I do not doubt that the leap of 
that tarpon seemed to the friend of W. H. M. 
all of forty feet, especially if it was among his 
earliest tarpon experiences. 
The statement reminds me of a young man 
once .employed in my office, and whom I de¬ 
sired to experience the glories of capturing a 
tarpon. He was totally unacquainted with large 
waters or fish, and when a six-footer on my 
hook, leaping furiously, came inconveniently 
near the skiff, and successfully threw the hook. 
Horace insisted on going ashore, and no amount 
of persuasion could get him into the boat again. 
At home the next day a friend chaffed me 
on my failure to bring back a tarpon, and I of 
course countered with the size of the “one I 
lost,” and for corroboration I called the young 
man and said: “Horace, how large was that 
tarpon we had yesterday?” 
He considered a moment—he was from the 
interior regions of Alabama—and then said with 
all earnest truthfulness: “I don’t know, sir. 
About as big as a mule, sir.” 
The tarpon makes his greatest leaps when at 
play. I have seen him take long, sweeping 
curves at such times of, I believe, twenty-five 
feet and perhaps ten in height. When hooked^ 
he comes up thrashing tremendously, making a 
wonderfully exciting and impressive commotion, 
but he does not rise as high as he would on a 
straight shoot. I have seen statements of 
sportsmen that when tarpon are hooked at the 
bottom of deep rivers and shoot straight up, 
they have shown the twenty-five foot marker on 
the line, but when hooked trolling, as is the 
case with us here, if a six or seven-foot tarpon 
clears more than twice his own length he has 
made a mighty big leap. W. L. Straub. 
•'I 
