


Juty 20, 1907.] 


FOREST. AND STREAM. 








A. ANID RIVE 

FIST 




‘Light Tackle Sea Fishing.— VIII. 
A rew notes concerning the action of the 
several giame fish on light tackle and this se- 
ries of articles is done. , 
When the club was. organized the giant 
black sea bass or jewfish was barred as not a 
eame fish. I had never tried for one, but had 
seen others sitting in anchored launches hour 
after hour under the broiling sun with rods 
resting across gunwales and hooks baited with 
five-pound chunks of albacore dragging about 
on the bottom eighty feet below. At the end 
of an hour, or a day, or a week, as the case 
may be, the strike comes—no, not a strike; 
the term implies too much activity, for a jew- 
fish comes nosing along, a veritable sea-hog, 
and picks up the bait together with any other 
refuse lying about, gorges it and moves slowly 
off, the reel begins to turn, the sleepy anglers 
are roused into life, the fish is allowed to take 
twenty or thirty feet of line before he is 
struck, then begins, not a fight, but a tug 
which may last one or more hours, according 
to the strength of the angler and the weight 
of the fish. There are no long, lightning-like 
rushes, no breathless moments. The sensa- 
tion described by even the enthusiastic must 
be a good deal like handling an animated log. 
Pound for pound there is incomparably more 
fight in any one of the sharks which infest the 
jewfish grounds and often gather in the bait. 
Anybody with strength and endurance, with 
the assistance of a good boatman handling the 
launch, can get in a big jewfish on heavy 
tackle. The official record is 436 pounds, and 
they have been caught considerably larger. . 
A jewfish on light tackle is a very different 
proposition. It means long endurance, great 
patience, steady pressure and the exercise of 
skill in transferring the strain from rod to line, 
and vice versa. The record with a nine-ounce 
rod and a nine-strand line is held by Mr. E. H. 
Brewster, who landed a 1&88-pound jewfish at 
the end of a little over four hours’ fine work. 
This season Mr. Brewster has presented the 
club a‘gold medal, which is offered for the 
largest fish, irrespective of species, taken on a 
nine-ounce rod and nine-thread line. As this 
competition is open, so to speak, to sharks as 
well as jewfish, there will be many a long con- 
test and no little damaged tackle in the effort 
-to win the prize. It is, however, almost a pity 
to subject good tackle to strains for which it 
is not intended. A fine rod may be ruined in 
trying to land a 400-pound shark or jewfish. 
So much has already been said of the alba- 
core that ‘there is little to add. . It is about 
the island winter and summer. If not caught 
during any one month it is because no one is 
out after it. Were it not for the other game 
fish the albacore alone would make Catalina 
famous as a fishing resort. In all other waters 
there are seasons when no large game fish are 
to be had, but there is never a day when there 
is not a chance of striking a school of these 
superb fish somewhere off Avalon, and once 
among them the fun is fast and. furious. 
With heavy tuna tackle it is a slaughter. 
With light tackle it is royal sport. It is 
especially exhilarating when the ‘wind is fresh, 
the waves high and tipped with whitecaps, and 
the launch dancing with storm-hood set. To 
have an albacore strike far astern at the very 
crest of a comber, and see the line pay out, a 
slender thread spanning the troughs and. link- 
ing wave with wave, then to stand as best one 
can and fight with the. launch doing a horn- 
pipe on the troubled waters and the spray 
wetting one’s back—that comes mighty near 
being sport, so near that to. kill the exhausted 
fish when alongside would be wanton brutal- 
ity to a worthy foe. The man who wants a 
silver or gold button will stand a better chance 

of getting one on an albacore if he goes after 
them day after day than on any other fish ex- 
cept the tuna. 
While there are plenty of good-sized yellow- 
tail, the number running over forty pounds 
caught each season with both heavy and light 
tackle can be counted on the fingers of one 
hand. 
White sea bass go as high as eighty pounds, 
and average higher than either albacore or 
yellowtail, but they are such shy biters one 
may waste a week or two before vetting even 
a thirty-five pounder, to say nothing of a 
forty-five, the size required on a nine-ounce 
rod for a gold button. The bass appear in 
April and lurk around the kelp and rocks in 
ereat numbers during May and June, gradually 
disappearing as the summer wears on. They 
strike best during the two months last named. 
Later they seem-to get food which satisfies 
them better than any bait which can be of- 
fered, 
They make their appearance without any 
flurry. Boatmen trolling alongshore for yel- 
lowtail first observe them down deep, so deep 
their long, silvery white forms are scarce vis- 
ible. Except when making a rush for flying- 
fish or a school of sardines, something they 
do once in a while, they are slow movers, in 
fact sluggish. A launch may pass and repass 
the spot where they lie, or come to a stop di- 
rectly over them, without disturbing their 
serenity. They may move a little to one side, 
but deliberately and with no signs of fear. 
One can drag a bait right among them with- 
out attracting the slightest attention. I have 
trolled over and through hundreds of them 
hours at a time without getting a strike. Take 
them all in all, they are the most exasperating 
fish about the island. When they are making 
a rush for flyingfish or sardines; that is, when 
they are active near the surface looking for 
food, they will strike with great avidity, and a 
dozen may be landed, but when down twenty 
or thirty feet and just loafing near a reef it 1s 
almost impossible to get them to take hold. 
They are found all along the coast, but the 
favorite resorts seem to be Seal Rocks, Ship 
Rock and Eagle Bank. 
I have seen five launches diligently working 
Eagle Bank an entire morning with only one 
bass to show for the time spent. There were 
a few strikes, but only one fish hooked, and 
yet there they were, hundreds of them about 
the west end of the bank, within a radius of 
two hundred feet. The puffing Jaunches did 
not scare them from the one place. 
We had two strikes on flyingfish, and though 
we let the fish take out twenty or thirty feet 
of line before attempting to set the hook, in 
neither case was the bait harmed. The bass 
simply grabbed the long flyingfish across the 
middle, leaving the heavy imprints of the 
jaws. When we struck they let go. Whether 
they would have turned the bait and proceeded 
to swallow it if given more time it is hard to 
say. One never knows what a white sea bass 
will do. 
If it were possible to keep sardines alive no 
doubt the bass could be caught im numbers 
The boatmen say that whenever a live bait is 
to be had a bass strike is a certainty. At- 
tempts have been made to carry sardines alive, 
but so far without success. However, it ought 
to be simply 2 question of ingenuity in rigging 
up something wherein or where-through the 
water could be. changed and the fish at the 
same time prevented from injuting themselves. 
The bass often strike well about dark and at 
night. These seem to be their favorite times 
for feeding. They sweep into the bays and 
shallow waters following schools of bait. 
Our best bass fishing we struck one day in 
Goat Harbor. Along with several launches 

we started from Avalon early in the morning 
for Eagle Bank, wheré the yellowtail fishing 
was exceptionally On the way up we 
put into Goat Harbor, hardly with the expecta 
tion of getting a strike, but Gray had landed 
two big yellowtail in there a few weeks before, 
and the small bay is considered the best 
grounds between Avalon and the Isthmus. 
The other launches kept their course. 
Goat Harbor, like nearly all the 
harbors and landing places about the island, 1s 
no harbor at all, only the mouth of a canon 
The high peaks and cliffs on each side jut out 
into the ocean, and where the canon meets the 
good. 
so-called 
water there is a hundred or a hundred and 
fifty feet of beach. From a rowboat a landing 
can be made when the waves are not rolling 
in, but there is nothing to’ land for. .The nat 
row cafion runs back only a few hundred yards 
between the rock peaks, and it is filled with 
rocks and scrubby brush. Every such place 
about the island is called a “landing” or a 
“harbor”? and given a name: a_ few like 
“Whites,” “Moonstone Beach,” 
etc., present larger beaches and considerable 
level ground. 
When we passed the point and entered the 
small “harbor” we found it literally alive with 
They were along the kelp in 
the small bay was filled 
They not only filled Goat 
Harbor, but extended around the next point 
into the adjoining indentation. They were 
large and small, some that would run eighty 
pounds easily. 
We started in and worked that school of fish 
all day-long. If they had been yellowtail we 
would have been exhausted within an hour or 
two, but it was not easy to get those bass to 
strike and hang on. During the entire day we 
had but sixteen strikes, and landed only seven 
fish. A man ought not to complain of that 
sport, but we could not help estimating the 
results by the prospects. 
There were the fish, great big fellows, hun 
dreds upon hundreds of them, some apparently 
feeding, and yet we would troll the bait among 
them a half hour at a time without provoking 
“Johnson's,” 
white’ sea bass. 
great numbers, anc 
from side to side. 

a strike. Once we thought we had the very 
father of the flock. We got him well away 
from the kelp and out in deep water. What a 
fight he made! For a half hour he played us. 
“He must be a whopper,” I remarked to 
Grav: “never had at bass fight like this.” 
“Acts to me like a yellowtail,” Gray replied, 
as he watched the fish bore down instead of 
playing near the surface. 
Sure enough, at the end of the half hour we 
brought a 3t-pound yellowtail into view, and 
we were both mad. because it was not a bass. 
Such is the inherent cussedness of fishermen, 
never satisfied. 
We had most of our strikes in the shallow 
water near the small beach, There was a 
slight swell which rolled in just strong enough 
to roil the shallow water, and some of the fish 
seemed to be feeding in close where the water 
was not clear, 
I had the same experience at Silver Canon, 
landine the record bass for the season in wa 
ter scarce a fathom deep, getting the strike al 
most directly beneath another launch, an illus 
tration of how little the fish care for the pres 
ence of a noisy: gasoline motor with its under 
water exhaust. 
The bass often feed along the bottom be- 
tween Seal Rocks. and White Rock. By trol 
ling diligently and very slowly, the bait drag- 
ging over the stones, it is possible to pick up 
two or three in a morning now and then, but 
not often. They take a slow bait so deliber- 
ately one does not realize a large game fish is 
at the end of the line, but when the hook is 
set it is a different matter. The make 
bass 

