Dec. 24, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1035 
modern motor boat that supplants the oars¬ 
man’s muscle with gasolene and puts no trust 
in Providence for a favorable wind. 
Some think the whirr of the motor “scares" 
the fish, others scoff at the notion. Both styles 
of boats bring in fish some days and both re¬ 
turn with empty bottoms on other days. 
Compensation also comes in another form 
before starting. It will be found in the wharf 
scene at sunrise—we say sunrise, but it is under¬ 
stood that there will be a fog on the morning 
you go salmon fishing. The fog plays an im¬ 
portant part in the morning’s entertainment. It 
curtains off the land and it hides the boundless 
expanse of water, and just shows the center of 
the stage on which the performance is about to 
begin, whereon the struggle for mastery be¬ 
tween your science and sagacity, and the com¬ 
bined resources of the king of fish, in his own. 
realm is to take place. 
As you approach it the wharf reaches to the 
very end of things apparently, so snugly has the 
mist settled down. The Santa Cruz wharf is 
not as picturesque as it was before the railroad 
encroached upon it, but at Capitola traffic does 
not trespass and the fishermen appropriate the 
wharf for their very own. 
In the dim space the fog has left you for a 
visible world, you can trace the pink bloom of 
the sea flowers that border the beach, on the 
westerly side of the wharf, and you hear the 
muffled music from the eternal diapason of the 
tides, and the soft lapping of the sea gull’s 
wings as he wafts himself about undecided 
where he will find his breakfast. It’s a weird 
world and a small one, without a trace or sug¬ 
gestion of the one in which you normally move 
and have your being. 
As you arrive the fisher boats of commerce 
are beginning to come in from their all-night 
vigil on the deep. Strong, lusty fellows are on 
board and they pass up the catch of the night 
to their co-partners on the wharf above. They 
speak in an unknown tongue, the language of 
modern Macedonia, but they laugh in our 
language and the work of unloading is accom¬ 
panied by many evident jests. 
“Gee! aren’t they beauties?” That’s what the 
tenderfoot exclaims in accents of surprise and 
admiration. They are. 
Each boat brings from twenty to forty fish 
about equally divided between sea bass and sal¬ 
mon, the sea bass running from twenty to 
forty pounds in weight and the salmon from 
ten to twenty-five pounds. 
These boats went out toward sunset last eve¬ 
ning. and spread their nets in a line which ex¬ 
tends from three to five miles in width. 
Heretofore the mesh of their nets was limited 
by law to 7^ inches. Last winter a! complacent 
fish commission consented to reducing the mesh 
to 6 l / 2 inches, thus rapidly increasing the speed 
at which the bay is robbed of its finny treasures, 
and certain fish dealers in San Francisco ac¬ 
cumulate profits from the fish business. 
And it is a great business. From half a ton 
to two tons daily of fish go up from Santa 
Cruz and Capitola to the San Francisco market. 
Many kinds of fish in their season and accord¬ 
ing to the demands of the market. The fisher¬ 
men work on a percentage or share of the 
profits, and to-morrow morning the fish just 
landed will be on the slabs of the retail markets 
of San Francisco and interior cities. 
But all this is another story, which quite 
offensively thrusts itself upon the attention and 
impels to profanity when we ought to be culti¬ 
vating serenity. 
Forgetting the fish commission, the law and 
the legislature, it is fun to watch these boats 
unload. The fisher folk certainly seem happy, 
but we can not find it in our hearts to envy 
them their job. After setting their nets at 
night they have “nothing to do but wait.” only 
at about n o’clock the nets must be hauled up 
and emptied, and again about 3 o’clock, for 
sometimes. a sealion comes along, and if he 
found fish in the nets he would have a fine play- 
spell with them. Sometimes a basking shark 
gets entangled in the nets, and at other rare 
times a whale finds his flippers tangled in a 
net. Then he gets mad, and tears about to the 
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THE NARRATIVE OF A SPORTSMAN 
INTER-OCEAN HUNTING TALES 
EDGAR F. RANDOLPH 
A series of hunting reminiscences of rare charm for the sportsman and for 
the wider circle which delights in true tales of outdoor life. With none of the high 
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Cloth, 170 Pages. Richly Illustrated. Postpaid, $1.00. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY, 127 Franklin Street, NEW YORK 
