It is possible that the day may come when man will be so engrossed
with the pursuit of the dollar that the call of the wild will no
longer quicken the pulsations of his heart. But until that time does
come, the wild creatures of nature, whose pursuit affords the most
healthful and exhilarating pastime, will continue to lure him to their
haunts.
"To sit on rocks and gaze o'er flood and fell;
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal feet hath ne'er, or rarely, been,"
will long continue to present a charm to all who love the sublimity of
the mountains, the beauty of the flower-decked fields, or the
awe-inspiring grandeur of the ocean.
To draw a bead on the antlered buck; to stop the flight of the gamy
quail; to land the denizen of the mountain stream, or troll the
ocean's depth for the tuna, the salmon or the yellow-tail, furnishes a
pastime whose recollection draws one back again and again to sit on
nature's lap and listen to her teachings. The recollection of these
pleasures are locked in the treasure vaults of the memory, where the
wearings of time can never erase them; for when the once firm step
that carried him proudly up the mountain's side shall falter and
become a palsied wreck of time, and the eye, dimmed by the accumulated
mists of years, shall see clearly, only in retrospect, he will sit by
his fire-side in slippered feet, and, gazing down the long vistas of
the past, live over and over again in his reveries the pleasures
furnished by the forest, the field, the stream and the ocean.
Nothing would please me better than to describe herein the many places
where, during a residence on the Pacific Coast of more than half a
century, I have enjoyed these sports in the fullest degree. But even
the merest mention of the almost innumerable hunting grounds and
trout streams, and the hundreds of mountain and sea-side resorts, from
Washington to Mexico, would, of itself, make a volume of no mean size.
I am, therefore, restricted to the mention of only a few of the more
attractive places where good sea fishing can be found, coupled with
such accommodations and surroundings as appeal to the discriminating
pleasure seeker.