HE GAME fish to be described in this article are, the tuna, the king salmon, the albicore, the yellow tail, the black bass, or Jew fish, the halibut, the bonito, and the barracuda. These taken, be it understood, with rod and reel furnish the sportsman a maximum of entertainment. Other fish, smelt, mackerel, flounder,

surf fish, rock cod, et hoc genus omne, present claims to the angler's consideration, but these claims will find due recognition at my hands elsewhere.

I am aware that a certain prejudice lurks in the hearts of fly-fishermen against those who go down to the sea with spoon, jig, and savory sardine. This prejudice I shall endeavor to remove. But I admit frankly that such fly-fishing as may be found in northern California and British Columbia, where the rivers, cool and pellucid, flow swiftly through primeval forests, where the pine and the hemlock sigh their lullabies above foaming rapids, where a stout trout puts to the proof the angler's utmost skill, where the fly must be cast with fairy-like delicacy and precision, such fly-fishing, I emphatically declare, soars into the empyrean of sport, unrivaled, unapproachable. But the cream of fly-fishing can be skimmed but by few. And the art as practised upon most of the lukewarm streams of Southern California is bastard and degenerate, exacting neither ability nor strategy. To yank troutlets by the hundred into a

barley sack, whether in season or out of season, may tickle the taste of a counterjumper, but it is not sport.

Nor is it sport to hire a power launch and a boatman, to scour up and down amongst schools of yellow tail, bonito, and barracuda, with twenty hand lines out astern, to fill barrels with fish that are left to rot on the beach, or thrown back, dead, into the ocean, to stand in front of the camera with hecatombs of the slain behind you,silent witnesses of your shame and cruelty,

this is not sport, nor fun, nor folly, but wanton and inexcusable crime.

And this crime, beneath the aegis of sport, is committed daily, nay hourly, at Santa Catalina island!

A few gentlemen-the gods be praised!

insist upon and practise the rigor of the game. They use the finest lines, the lightest rods, and in short, give their quarry what is his lawful due- fair play. The strength of the tackle should depend upon the size of the fish. A sportsman will approve the golden rule of a "minute to the pound." For instance, in trolling for yellow tail the cuttyhunk line should be of fifteen ply; without putting undue strain upon this it is almost impossible to kill a fifteen pound fish in less than a quarter of an hour; a thirty pounder, in like manner, would keep one busy for thirty minutes. Some fish, of course, are more game than others, but the rule, in the majority of cases, holds good. In Florida, fishing for tarpon, the man who uses a line heavier than sixteen ply is voted a pariah; at Catalina, fishing for tuna, twenty-four ply line has alone with

stood the terrific rushes and plunges of this prince of the Pacific. When he sounds and sulks he must be lifted, hence the necessity of stout tackle; but so far, only fifteen of these giants have been taken, further experience may modify our conclusions.

The first tuna killed with rod and reel was taken by my friend, Mr. Morehouse of Pasadena, last summer. This season, so far, fourteen have come to the gaff. Mr. W. Greer Campbell, an enthusiastic fisherman, has devoted six weeks to the tuna, and deservedly holds the record. Mr. Campbell assured me that the tuna is a gamer and stronger fish than the tarpon. The following excerpt from an article written. by Professor Charles F. Holder for the Cosmopolitan magazine, and published less than eighteen months ago, is worth quoting:

The activity of the tuna is only comparable to the tarpon. I have seen them leap ten or fifteen feet into the air, while they have been known to jump over the boats in pursuit of them. Sportsmen from the East have devoted weeks to this fish, hoping to win fame and honor by taking one on the rod, but so far the tuna has harvested the rods, reels, and lines, and is still master of the situation.

My brother and I fished patiently for this high muck-a-muck of the mackerel tribe, and lost many sets of hooks, much line, and some solid flesh. Finally, using the same rod and reel that had done such effective work in Mr. Campbell's hands, and in the company of James Gardner, Mr. Campbell's boatman, I succeeded in bringing a tuna to the gaff that scaled one hundred and twentyfive pounds. The fish was on for one hour and five minutes. During that time he never rested once, nor did I. He taxed all my powers of endurance; he rushed here and there with the speed and strength of a wild Texan steer; he sounded and sulked; he charged us again and again; he broke water; and he died like a true gladiator, when he was unable to strike another blow for freedom!

Ananias Club, says fifteen miles. He was hooked in Avalon harbor; he towed the boat to Banning bay and back; thence to the farther point of Pebbly beach and back; then he put bravely to sea. When the line broke we hastened to our breakfast as fast as the launch could go, but we were fiftyfive minutes in reaching our moorings!

You fish for tarpon at anchor, the bait resting upon the bottom; you troll for tuna at full speed, sitting in a boat towed by a launch. When the fish strikes, the boatman lets go of the painter and seizes the oars; upon his promptness and skill hang success and failure. If he can stop his boat and set her going in the wake of the tuna before your line has run out, if - this feat being successfully accomplished - he never once relaxes his vigilance, if, in a word, he does his part as boatman effectively and coolly, and if you, on the other hand, thoroughly understand your business and can estimate justly the strength of your tackle, then, even then, the chances of bringing the quarry to the steel are against you.

Tuna may be caught at Catalina (possibly elsewhere, but I can obtain no reliable information upon this point) from May to November, but Mr. Campbell considers June the best month. They feed voraciously upon flying fish, driving them, as do the seals, into small bays and inlets. And the authorities agree that it is prudent to fish for tuna as near the kelp as possible, in shallow water. Hooked in deep water, he may sound at once, and then nothing finer than a ship's cable would suffice to stop him. Unlike the monstrous Jew fish, he loves blue water, and as a rule puts to sea as soon as he feels the barb. If, unhappily, he should seek sanctuary in the kelp, the line must break. The bait used is a flying fish about fourteen inches long. A stout hook pierces the head, another, attached to the first with piano wire, is sewn to the belly; a trace of wire a yard long and a stout brass swivel complete the lure, which should be attached to the line by means of a clove hitch and a bowline. Piano wire rusts rapidly in salt water, the prudent sportsman, therefore, will buy vaseline and see personally that it is liberally used. By this means a catastrophe may be avoided. These hooks are provided by James Gardner.

The rods, reels, and lines, must be of superlative quality. A ten-ounce split bam

boo rod should be bound with whipcord to within three feet of the tip, the reel an Edwin Vom Hofe reel is the best - should hold three hundred yards of wet line, and the line must be reeled on wet. Dry line, moistened by the impact of wet line, is likely to expand at a critical moment, and thereby clog disastrously the reel's action.

The tuna feeds early and late, but so far nearly all the fish have been hooked between four and five A. M. The boatman's charges are reasonable. Four dollars will cover a single expedition: two dollars and

a half to the owner of the launch, one dollar and a half to the boatman.

The illustration gives no idea of the tuna's superlative beauty. He belongs to the mackerel family no handsomer fish can be found and wears its blue and silver livery. Freshly killed, he gleams with an iridescence that may be compared to the sheen of mother of pearl, or abalone shell. The scales are beneath the outer skin, and the pectoral and dorsal fins are provided with wondrous sheaths. For speed, strength, and comeliness, he cannot be excelled.

The king salmon stands next to the tuna

in my affections, and may be taken with rod and reel in a dozen different localities on the Pacific coast, but seldom south of Santa Barbara. Monterey bay is a famous hunting ground. At Santa Cruz are found boatmen, tackle, bait, and in the season, dozens of enthusiastic fishermen. My brothers and I have caught numbers of these fine fish off Port Harford. They vary in size from eighteen to forty pounds. Sir Richard Musgrave, I believe, holds the record with a monster of seventy pounds taken with rod and reel last year at the mouth of the Campbell river. A cast of this salmon can be seen in the museum at Victoria, and no less august a paper than the Spectator chronicled its capture.

The bait is a fresh sardine, or failing

Raschen, after Photo

that, a large spoon. The rod should be light, stiff, and not too short; the reel should hold not less than five hundred feet of fifteen ply cuttyhunk line. The authorities disagree as to the use of a sinker, but no rule can be laid down. I use a light sinker, and instruct my boatman to pull slowly in and around the schools of sardines, herrings, and anchovies, upon which the salmon feed. Failing in these tactics, I have substituted a heavier sinker, and trolled below the schools of bait; the salmon have then bitten freely. Of their comings and goings knoweth no man with certainty. December, January, February, and March, are the best months, but, like wapiti, they shift their quarters with exasperating swiftness. Instruct your boatman to wire

you the news of their advent, and lose not a moment in taking the next train to the fishing ground.

I think sea salmon fishing is especially to be commended because the fish visits this State during the dullest season of the year. (I speak, of course, from a sportsman's point of view.) And they bite freely during the day. Early rising is quite unnecessary. Moreover, the hills and vales of California are wearing Spring's mantle; even in December the bleak, brown slopes of the Coast range begin to glow with tender tints, and the turbulent trade winds are

mark the superb proportions that are his insignia of royalty. Light corruscates from his silvery scales as from a Golconda diamond. He looks what he is a king.

I leave His Majesty with reluctance, and turn to my friend the yellow tail, sometimes called the white salmon. To the salmon, however, he is not even of kin. He belongs, strangely enough, to the pompanos (these delicious fish are esteemed by epicures an extraordinary delicacy), to the carangida, and his particular style and title is Seriola dorsalis. Until quite recently this handsome fellow was not found north of

raging elsewhere. Upon land and sea lies the promise of peace and plenty, and the charm of this Fruhlingslied cannot be set down in crude printer's ink.

The salmon makes a game fight, but he must miss the ice-cold waters of his northern home. His first rush is not always the worst. Sometimes he comes like a lamb to the steel, but at sight of it sounds with the speed of a stone dropped into a well. He is a past master in the art of hammering a line. In the clear waters of the bay where I fish you may see him, deep down, shaking his thoroughbred head and striking the line with his tail. As he nears the surface you

Point Conception, but of late large catches have been made in Monterey bay. I have caught them off Pismo wharf in San Luis Obispo county, but Catalina island is their home. Here they may be taken with rod and reel for nine months in the yearfrom April to December, and taken by the score!

The yellow tail is stronger and speedier than the salmon, but he has a plebeian love of kelp, and is tricky as any street Arab. No spoon with seductive shimmer will tempt the Beau Brummel of Catalina. He turns aside from smelt and sardine if they swim ever so slightly askew, and he seldom swal