
FOREST AND STREAM, 

[JuLy 6, 1907. 


] 
|| Sessoms 
SEA 


ND RIVER FISTING 


Light Tackle Sea Fishing—VI. 
tackle fishing it is of vital import- 
the points and barbs 
very sharp. A small file should be carried, and 
after every strike the point should be 
fully examined and sharpened. It is not 
In light 
ance to keep of hooks 
cane- 
easy 

to “set” a dull or rusty hook with a light rod. 
A coil of No. 6 piano wire should be carried 
for leaders, plenty of good-sized swivels, and 
an assortment of sinkers of various weights. 
The leader should be longer than the fish one 
is after. Four feet is enough for all fish but 
tuna; for them a five or six foot leader is 
better It is not a matter of strength, but 
length So far as strength concerned, ethe 
wire would part a dozen lines; but the fish 
often make their rushes directly away from 
the boat, and with sides and tails chafing the 
leader. The line should be far enough back 
to escape this wear and tear 
It. is needless to say that a kink in wire is 
fatal, and that rust 1s a most subtle destroy ele 
lf heavy sinkers are used, they should be 
fastened on the leader; if a heavy or even 
moderately heavy sinker be fastened on the 
line above the leader the sharp turns and 
} 
jerks of the fish part the line against the in- 

ertia of the piece of lead. It is possible to 
take any one of the four game fish mentioned 
trolling without sinker, but most of the boat- 
men pre fer about an ounce of weight. 
[There are times—especially early tn the 
season, when the fish along shore are lying 
low and the bait must be carried down to 
them either by moving slowly or by very 
heavy sinkers [f unsuccessful trolling fast 
near surface, the experienced boatman will 
slow down or stop from time to time and let 
the hook drop to the bottom. 
The good fisherman tries first one scheme, 
then another le will cover the ground on the 
surface, then he will try it deep, then he will 
try just drifting with bait almost scraping the 
bottom. Usually soon or late his patience is 
rewarded, and he feels the satisfaction of a 
man who has worked hard and landed his fish 
by the exercise of ingenuity. 
“There should be at least one swivel between 
line and leader. A safety pin snap swivel is 
the most useful: device of its kind, especially 
useful for quickly changing spoons and arti- 
ficial baits 
lish are so plentiful at Catalina they invite 
experiments 
\Ibacore usually run in schools. One strike 
means a second, and it is an advantage to have 
several boats chumming and fishing together. 
It holds the fish and keeps them in a state of 
excitement. Often hundreds of the game fish 
will dart about the launch, voraciously grab 
bing the fragments of sardines thrown over. 
\ dexterous boatman can stick a sardine on 
the point of a gaff and gaff one of the ex- 
cited fish. In their eagerness to get the chum 
they appear oblivious, to everything, passing 


and repassing within a foot or two of the 
under-water exhaust from the motor. 
It occurred to me that it would be interest- 
ine to land two of these large fish at the same 
time, and I arranged a double bait as follows: 
To a 4-0 large swivel we attached two leaders 
of No. 12 piano wire, one six feet in leneth, 
the other two; and in each of these leaders 
a swivel was inserted about ten inches below 
the first; to each leader a o-o Harrison hook 
By this device all the strain of the two fish 
hehting one another was taken by the heavy 
ring of the first swivel without being trans- 
mitted to the line. As one leader was longer 
than the other, one bait traveled that much 
try tO 
aS Ct 

behind, and the effect was that of two sar- 
dines traveling in the. same direction about 
four feet apart. 
The bait ran, well in the water, with less 
turning than one, would suppose; in fact, 
ratlier. better than a single bait. To be sure, 
the short leader would usually take a turn or 
two about the longer, but I could not see that 
it made much difference, for this upper bait 
would attract single strikes about as often as 
the second, 
It was some time before the two albacore 
were landed. We had two. strikes again and 
again, sometimes simultaneously, more often 
one a little after the other.’ I remember the 
first double strike. We were bowling along, 
no launches near, and not a sign of a fish. 
Suddenly there came the sharp tug of an.al- 
bacore, and the line began to go out for the 
first long rush. All at once the line was 
slack, just as if parted. 
“We've lost him!” I exclaimed to Gray. 
There was a jerk on the line. ‘No, he’s on.” 
Then the line slackened again. ‘“He’s off!” 
I called out. Then followed a series of queer 
jerks, which made the rod bob up and down 
in a manner that caused Gray to say, in amaze- 
ment, “That's: the queerest acting fish [’”———= 
“Gray, we've got two onl” and I began t) 
recover line. That was easy wlten the 
two fish were coming our way, but when they 
were going in some other direction it ws 
impossible to check them. The fact was they 
were so wrapped up in one another they did 
not realize our presence. The strain on the 
light: line was utterly lost in the fierceness of 



their struggles to get free from zach other. 
All the strain was taken by the two ieadcrs 
and the ring of the first swivel. 
We did not get these two fish. After a short 
play one .got away; but it was not often we 
lost both fish. We nearly always landed one. 
After two or three experiences it was easy 
to tell when the second fish took hold; the 
long, steady rush would be interrupted; there 
would be a series of queer jerks, of quick alter- 
nations between a taut and a slack line. One 
instant the rod would fly up as if the line were 
parted; the next it would be bent in a sharp 
curve as the two fish made a run together, and 
on until one got free, when the’ action 
would immediately become normal. 
So far as strain on line is concerned, fight- 
SO 
ing two fish is easier than landing one, for 
the fish struggle against each other rather 
than against rod and line, but the play is ex- 
citing and pretty, in that the fish seldom sound 
deep, but dart in every direction. 
It is interesting to look through the clear 
water and watch the strange motions of two 
big game fish, prisoners, hand-cuffed, or, 
rather, mouth-cuffed together, fighting to get 
free; now side by side, now eight feet apart; 
one moment traveling together and taking 
out line with irresistible power, the next sec- 
ond one may take it into its head to come 
up, the other to go.down. They never travel 
in harmony for more than ten or fifteen yards. 
A boatload of tourists happened to be fish- 
ing within thirty feet when we landed our 
first pair. They did not know we had two 
hooks on the one line, and great was their as- 
tonishment when they saw a 22- and a 26-pound 
albacore lifted over the side of our launch— 
it w a good thing we had witnesses, for it 
required a good deal of independent testimony 
to establish the fact on shore. 
Returning to Avalon one evening about sun- 
there was a flurry on the surface at the 
mouth of the bay—a quick gathering of gulls, 
and as we passed over the spot a strike, then 
a second. In ten or. fifteen minutes we took 
in a 16-pound yellowtail and a 25-pound white 
as 

sea. bass, 
It so happened this was my first 
of each species. nae hi 
‘Lhe .white sea bass struck first: then the 
yellowtail, and when the latter struct, though 
the lighter fish, there was, in the picturesque 
language of the day, “something done.” ‘Inhat 
poor sea bass must have thought he was at- 
tached to an intoxicated streak of lightning’ 
‘The yellowtail yanked him all over that sec- 
tion of the bay. 
Afterward we caught albacore and sharks, 
and finally two sharks. ‘hat was a queer 
sight, those two long, lanky biue sharks twaist- 
ing and squirming in the water. 
The advantage of the double bait lies.in the 
fact that when one fish 1s making its heht it 
is at the same time trolling for another. lt 
not matter which bait is taken first, the 
other goes trailing out to one side in most 
attractive fashion. As a hooked fish attracts 
others, the second.bait is almost certain to get 
a strike. If the fish has a chance to sound 
deep, the chances are there will be no second 
does 
strike until the first is worked up nearer the 
surtace. 
One afternoon we had an albacore on one 
hook. On getting him near the launch we saw 
a blue shark following 
fish. The second bait 
the hook. 
_ Reeling the albacore to the side of the boat. 
Gray reached over, picked up the second leader 
and deftly slipped a sardine on the hook. 
Letting the albacore out, it trolled the bait 
about. In a second the shark hove in sight, 
us time after the bait which was trailing most 
invitingly at one side. The albacore dashed 
about frantically, with the shark turning on its 
ide every once in a while in an effort to get 
1e sardine. Twice it made a snap: and each 
me was caught slightly by the hook; but not 
iscouraged, it tried a third time and was 
ooked good and hard. The dash of the alba- 
ore turned the shark over completely and two 
noré startled fish never swam.the ocean. Off 
they turned, twisted and tumbled in their efforts 
to get away from each other, and it was some 
time before we could get them in and kill the 
shark. Why is every fisherman’s hand raised 
against a shark? 
in the effort to get the 
had been stripped from 
i 
Lr 
sa stocd 

I tried once for two tuna with leaders of No. 
I4 -wire, but they: went through our double 
tackle as if it had been so much cotton yarn. 
There was first one good, strong tuna ‘strike, 
with the beginning of a keen rush: almost im- 
mediately a second strike, then in less than a 
“jiffy,” there was just nothing at all. Reeling 
in, we found the ring of the first large swivel 
bent and distorted, one of the No. 14 piano wire 
leaders parted where it had been given a twist 
about the ring, and the big. tarpon hook on the 
other leader partially straightened out. 
he monster black seabass, the jewfish, has 
never attracted me, but one day I fixed a double 
bait, thinking it would be amusing to try to 
land two. On the way to the jewfish grounds 
we ran into a school of yellowtail which very 
effectually diverted us, and it so happened we 
never tried that domble tackle. but there is no 
reason why it.should not work. 
In fishing for jewfish a three or four-pound 
chunk of albacore is put on a tarpon hook 
and the bait allowed to rest on the bottom in- 
sixty.or eighty feet of water until a lumbering 
fish comes snooping along and slowly picks 
it up. The fish moves along twenty or thirty 
feet, then is struck. Sharks abound and make 
the fishing uncertain 
There is no reason why the following 
arrangement of tackle ‘should not get two jew- 
fish, two sharks. or a shark and a jewfish, as 
the case might be. From a strong iron ring 
of, say, an inch in diameter run two leaders 


















































































































































