time. We counted six pairs in sight. I saw as many as four of the
funnel-like whale spouts of water on the horizon at once. It was very
interesting to watch these monsters of the deep. Once when we were all
on top of the boat we ran almost right upon two whales. The first
spouted about fifty feet away. The sea seemed to open up, a terrible
roar issued forth, then came a cloud of spray and rush of water. Then we
saw another whale just rising a few yards ahead. My hair stood up stiff.
Captain Dan yelled, leaped down to reverse the engine. The whale saw us
and swerved. Dan's action and the quickness of the whale prevented a
collision. As it was, I looked down in the clear water and saw the huge,
gleaming, gray body of the whale as he passed. That was another sight to
record in the book of memory. The great flukes of his tail moved with
surprising swiftness and the water bulged on the surface. Then we ran
close to the neighborhood of a school of whales, evidently feeding. They
would come up and blow, and then sound. To see a whale sound and then
raise his great, broad, shining flukes in the air, high above the water,
is in my opinion the most beautiful spectacle to be encountered upon the
ocean. Up to this day, during five seasons, I had seen three whales
sound with tails in the air. And upon this occasion I had the exceeding
good fortune to see seven. I tried to photograph one. We followed a big
bull. When he came up to blow we saw a yellow moving space on the water,
then a round, gray, glistening surface, then a rugged snout. Puff! His
blow was a roar. He rolled on, downward a little; the water surged white
and green. When he came up to sound he humped his huge back. It was
shiny, leathery, wonderfully supple. It bent higher and higher in an
arch. Then this great curve seemed to slide swiftly out of sight and his
wonderful tail, flat as a floor and wide as a house, emerged to swing
aloft. The water ran off it in sheets. Then it waved higher, and with
slow, graceful, ponderous motion sank into the sea. That sight more than
anything impressed me with the immensity of the ocean, with its mystery
of life, with the unattainable secrets of the deep.
The tuna appeared to be scattered, and none were on the surface. I had
one strike that plowed up the sea, showing the difference between the
strike of a big tuna and that of a little one. He broke my line on the
first rush. Then I hooked another and managed to stop him. I had a
grueling battle with him, and at the end of two hours and fifty minutes
he broke my hook. This was a disappointment far beyond reason, but I
could not help it.
Next day was windy. The one following we could not find the fish, and
the third day we all concluded they had gone for 1918. I think the fame
of tuna, the uncertainty of their appearance, the difficulty of
capturing a big one, are what excite the ambition of anglers. Long
effort to that end, and consequent thinking and planning and feeling,
bring about a condition of mind that will be made clear as this story
progresses.
But Captain Danielson did not give up. The fifth day we ran off the west
side with several other boats, and roamed the sea in search of fins. No
anchovies on the surface, no sheerwater ducks, no sharks, nothing to
indicate tuna. About one o'clock Captain Dan sheered southwest and we
ran sixteen miles toward Clemente Island.
It was a perfect day, warm, hazy, with light fog, smooth, heaving,
opalescent sea. There was no wind. At two thirty not one of the other
boats was in sight. At two forty Captain Dan sighted a large, dark,
rippling patch on the water. We ran over closer.
"School of tuna!" exclaimed the captain, with excitement. "Big fish! Oh,
for some wind now to fly the kite!"
"There's another school," said my brother, R. C., and he pointed to a
second darkly gleaming spot on the smooth sea.
"I've spotted one, too!" I shouted.
"The ocean's alive with tuna--big tuna!" boomed Captain Dan. "Here we
are alone, blue-button fish everywhere--and no wind."
"We'll watch the fish and wait for wind," I said.
This situation may not present anything remarkable to most fishermen.
But we who knew the game realized at once that this was an experience of
a lifetime. We counted ten schools of tuna near at hand, and there were
so many farther on that they seemed to cover the sea.
"Boys," said Captain Dan, "here's the tuna we heard were at Anacapa
Island last week. The Japs netted hundreds of tons. They're working
southeast, right in the middle of the channel, and haven't been inshore
at all. It's ninety miles to Anacapa. Some traveling!... That school
close to us is the biggest school I ever saw and I believe they're the
biggest fish."
"Run closer to them," I said to him.
We ran over within fifty feet of the edge of the school, stopped the
boat, and all climbed up on top of the deck.
Then we beheld a spectacle calculated to thrill the most phlegmatic
fisherman. It simply enraptured me, and I think I am still too close to
it to describe it well. The dark-blue water, heaving in great, low, lazy
swells, showed a roughened spot of perhaps two acres in extent. The sun,
shining over our shoulders, caught silvery-green gleams of fish,
flashing wide and changing to blue. Long, round, bronze backs deep under
the surface, caught the sunlight. Blue fins and tails, sharp and curved,
like sabers, cleared the water. Here a huge tuna would turn on his side,
gleaming broad and bright, and there another would roll on the surface,
breaking water like a tarpon with a slow, heavy souse.
"Look at the leaders," said Captain Dan. "I'll bet they're
three-hundred-pound fish."
I saw then that the school, lazy as they seemed, were slowly following
the leaders, rolling and riding the swells. These leaders threw up
surges and ridges on the surface. They plowed the water.
"What'd happen if we skipped a flying-fish across the water in front of
those leaders?" I asked Captain Dan.
He threw up his hands. "You'd see a German torpedo explode."
"Say! tuna are no relation to Huns!" put in my brother.
It took only a few moments for the school to drift by us. Then we ran
over to another school, with the same experience. In this way we visited
several of these near-by schools, all of which were composed of large
tuna. Captain Dan, however, said he believed the first two schools,
evidently leaders of this vast sea of tuna, contained the largest fish.
For half an hour we fooled around, watching the schools and praying for
wind to fly the kite. Captain Dan finally trolled our baits through one
school, which sank without rewarding us with a strike.
At this juncture I saw a tiny speck of a boat way out on the horizon.
Captain Dan said it was Shorty's boat with Adams. I suggested that, as
we had to wait for wind to fly the kite, we run in and attract Shorty's
attention. I certainly wanted some one else to see those magnificent
schools of tuna. Forthwith we ran in several miles until we attracted
the attention of the boatman Captain Dan had taken to be Shorty. But it
turned out to be somebody else, and my good intentions also turned out
to my misfortune.
Then we ran back toward the schools of tuna. On the way my brother
hooked a Marlin swordfish that leaped thirty-five times and got away.
After all those leaps he deserved to shake the hook. We found the tuna
milling and lolling around, slowly drifting and heading toward the
southeast. We also found a very light breeze had begun to come out of
the west. Captain Dan wanted to try to get the kite up, but I objected
on the score that if we could fly it at all it would only be to drag a
bait behind the boat. That would necessitate running through the schools
of tuna, and as I believed this would put them down, I wanted to wait
for enough wind to drag a bait at right angles with the boat. This is
the proper procedure, because it enables an angler to place his bait
over a school of tuna at a hundred yards or more from the boat. It
certainly is the most beautiful and thrilling way to get a strike.
So we waited. The boatman whose attention we had attracted had now come
up and was approaching the schools of tuna some distance below us. He
put out a kite that just barely flew off the water and it followed
directly in the wake of his boat. We watched this with disgust, but
considerable interest, and we were amazed to see one of the anglers in
that boat get a strike and hook a fish.
That put us all in a blaze of excitement. Still we thought the strike
they got might just have been lucky. In running down farther, so we
could come back against the light breeze, we ran pretty close to the
school out of which the strike had been gotten. Captain Dan stood up to
take a good look.
"They're hundred-pounders, all right," he said. "But they're not as big
as the tuna in those two leading schools. I'm glad those ginks in that
boat are tied up with a tuna for a spell."
I took a look at the fisherman who was fighting the tuna. Certainly I
did not begrudge him one, but somehow, so strange are the feelings of a
fisherman that I was mightily pleased to see that he was a novice at the
game, was having his troubles, and would no doubt be a long, long time
landing his tuna. My blood ran cold at the thought of other anglers
appearing on the scene, and anxiously I scanned the horizon. No boat in
sight! If I had only known then what sad experience taught me that
afternoon I would have been tickled to pieces to see all the great
fishermen of Avalon tackle this school of big tuna.
Captain Dan got a kite up a little better than I had hoped for. It was
not good, but it was worth trying. My bait, even on a turn of the boat,
skipped along just at the edge of the wake of the boat. And the wake of
a boat will almost always put a school of tuna down.
We headed for the second school. My thrilling expectancy was tinged and
spoiled with doubt. I skipped my bait in imitation of a flying-fish
leaping and splashing along. We reached the outer edge of the school.
Slowly the little boils smoothed out. Slowly the big fins sank. So did
my heart. We passed the school. They all sank. And then when Captain Dan
swore and I gave up there came a great splash back of my bait. I yelled
and my comrades echoed me. The tuna missed. I skipped the bait. A
sousing splash--and another tuna had my bait. My line sagged. I jerked
hard. But too late! The tuna threw the hook before it got a hold.
"They're hungry!" exclaimed Dan. "Hurry--reel the kite in. We'll get
another bait on quick.... Look! that school is coming up again! They're
not shy of boats. Boys, there's something doing."
Captain Dan's excitement augmented my own. I sensed an unusual
experience that had never before befallen me.
The school of largest fish was farther to the west. The breeze lulled.
We could not fly the kite except with the motion and direction of the
boat. It was exasperating. When we got close the kite flopped down into
the water. Captain Dan used language. We ran back, picked up the kite.
It was soaked, of course, and would not fly. While Dan got out a new
kite, a large silk one which we had not tried yet, we ran down to the
eastward of the second school. To our surprise and delight this untried
kite flew well without almost any wind.
We got in position and headed for the school. I was using a big hook
half embedded near the tail of the flying-fish and the leader ran
through the bait. It worked beautifully. A little jerk of my rod sent
the bait skittering over the water, for all the world like a live
flying-fish. I knew now that I would get another strike. Just as we
reached a point almost opposite the school of tuna they headed across
our bow, so that it seemed inevitable we must either run them down or
run too close. My spirit sank to zero. Something presaged bad luck. I
sensed disaster. I fought the feeling, but it persisted. Captain Dan
swore. My brother shouted warnings from over us where he sat on top. But
we ran right into the leaders. The school sank. I was sick and furious.
"Jump your bait! It's not too late," called Dan.
I did so. Smash! The water seemed to curl white and smoke. A tuna had my
bait. I jerked. I felt him. He threw the hook. Half the bait remained
upon it. Smash! A great boil and splash! Another tuna had that. I tried
to jerk. But both kite and tuna pulling made my effort feeble. This one
also threw out the hook. It came out with a small piece of mangled red
flying-fish still hanging to it. Instinctively I jumped that remains of
my bait over the surface. Smash! The third tuna cleaned the hook.
Captain Dan waxed eloquent and profane.
My brother said, "What do you know about that?"
As for myself, I was stunned one second and dazzled the next. Three
strikes on one bait! It seemed disaster still clogged my mind, but what
had already happened was new and wonderful. Half a mile below us I saw
the angler still fighting the tuna he had hooked. I wanted him to get
it, but I hoped he would be all afternoon on the job.
"Hurry, Cap!" was all I said.
Ordinarily Dan is the swiftest of boatmen. To-day he was slower than
molasses and all he did went wrong. What he said about the luck was more
than melancholy. I had no way to gauge my own feelings because I had
never had such an experience before. Nor had I ever heard or read of any
one having it.
We got a bait on and the kite out just in time to reach the first and
larger school. I was so excited that I did not see we were heading right
into it. My intent gaze was riveted upon my bait as it skimmed the
surface. The swells were long, low, smooth mounds. My bait went out of
sight behind one. It was then I saw water fly high and I felt a tug. I
jerked so hard I nearly fell over. My bait shot over the top of the
swell. Then that swell opened and burst--a bronze back appeared. He
missed the hook. Another tuna, also missing, leaped into the air--a fish
of one hundred and fifty pounds, glittering green and silver and blue,
jaws open, fins stiff, tail quivering, clear and clean-cut above the
surface. Again we all yelled. Actually before he fell there was another
smash and another tuna had my bait. This one I hooked. His rush was
irresistible. I released the drag on the reel. It whirled and whizzed.
The line threw a fine spray into my face. Then the tip of my rod flew up
with a jerk, the line slacked. We all knew what that meant. I reeled in.
The line had broken above the few feet of double line which we always
used next the leader. More than ever disaster loomed over me. The
feeling was unshakable now.
Nevertheless, I realized that wonderful good fortune attended us in the
fact that the school of big tuna had scarcely any noticeable fear of the
boat; they would not stay down, and they were ravenous.
On our next run down upon them I had a smashing strike. The tuna threw
the hook. Another got the bait and I hooked him. He sounded. The line
broke. We tried again. No sooner had we reached the school when the
water boiled and foamed at my bait. Before I could move that tuna
cleaned the hook. Our next attempt gained another sousing strike. But he
was so swift and I was so slow that I could not fasten to him.
"He went away from here," my brother said, with what he meant for
comedy. But it was not funny.
Captain Dan then put on a double hook, embedding it so one hook stood
clear of the bait. We tested my line with the scales and it broke at
fifty-three pounds, which meant it was a good strong line. The breeze
lulled and fanned at intervals. It seemed, however, we did not need any
breeze. We had edged our school of big tuna away from the other schools,
and it was milling on the surface, lazily and indifferently. But what
latent speed and power lay hidden in that mass of lolling tuna.
R. C. from his perch above yelled: "Look out! You're going to drag your
bait in front of the leaders this time!"
That had not happened yet. I glowed in spite of the fact that I was
steeped in gloom. We were indeed heading most favorably for the leaders.
Captain Dan groaned. "Never seen the like of this!" he added. These
leaders were several yards apart, as could be told by the blunt-nosed
ridges of water they shoved ahead of them. That was another moment added
to the memorable moments of my fishing years. It was strained suspense.
Hope would not die, but disaster loomed like a shadow.
Before I was ready, before we expected anything, before we got near
these leaders, a brilliant, hissing, white splash burst out of the sea,
and a tuna of magnificent proportions shot broadside along and above the
surface, sending the spray aloft, and he hit that bait with incredible
swiftness, raising a twenty-foot-square, furious splash as he hooked
himself. I sat spellbound. I heard my line whistling off the reel. But I
saw only that swift-descending kite. So swiftly did the tuna sound that
the kite shot down as if it had been dropping lead. My line broke and my
rod almost leaped out of my hands.
We were all silent a moment. The school of tuna showed again, puttering
and fiddling around, with great blue-and-green flashes caught by the
sun.
"That one weighed about two hundred and fifty," was all Captain Dan
said.
R. C. remarked facetiously, evidently to cheer me, "Jakey, you picks de
shots out of that plue jay an' we makes ready for anudder one!"
"Say, do you imagine you can make me laugh!" I asked, in tragic scorn.
"Well, if you could have seen yourself when that tuna struck you'd have
laughed," replied he.
While Dan steered the boat R. C. got out on the bow and gaffed the kite.
I watched the tuna tails standing like half-simitars out of the smooth,
colored water. The sun was setting in a golden haze spotted by pink
clouds. The wind, if anything, was softer than ever; in fact, we could
not feel it unless we headed the boat into it. The fellow below us was
drifting off farther, still plugging at his tuna.
Captain Dan put the wet kite on the deck to dry and got out another
silk one. It soared aloft so easily that I imagined our luck was
changing. Vain fisherman's delusion! Nothing could do that. There were
thousands of tons--actually thousands of tons of tuna in that three-mile
stretch of ruffled water, but I could not catch one. It was a settled
conviction. I was reminded of what Enos, the Portuguese boatman,
complained to an angler he had out, "You mos' unluck' fisherman I ever
see!"
We tried a shorter kite-line and a shorter length of my line, and we ran
down upon that mess of tuna once more. It was strange--and foolish--how
we stuck to that school of biggest fish. This time Dan headed right into
the thick of them. Out of the corners of my eyes I seemed to see tuna
settling down all around. Suddenly my brother yelled.
Zam! That was a huge loud splash back of my bait. The tuna missed. R. C.
yelled again. Captain Dan followed suit:
"He's after it!... Oh, he's the biggest yet!"
Then I saw a huge tuna wallowing in a surge round my bait. He heaved up,
round and big as a barrel, flashing a wide bar of blue-green, and he got
the hook. If he had been strangely slow he was now unbelievably swift.
His size gave me panic. I never moved, and he hooked himself. Straight
down he shot and the line broke.
My brother's sympathy now was as sincere as Captain Dan's misery. I
asked R. C. to take the rod and see if he could do better.
"Not much!" he replied. "When you get one, then I'll try. Stay with 'em,
now!"
Not improbably I would have stayed out until the tuna quit if that had
taken all night. Three more times we put up the kite--three more
flying-fish we wired on the double hooks--three more runs we made
through that tantalizing school of tuna that grew huger and swifter and
more impossible--three more smashing wide breaks of water on the
strike--and quicker than a flash three more broken lines!
I imagined I was resigned. My words to my silent comrades were even
cheerful.
"Come on. Try again. Where there's life there's hope. It's an
exceedingly rare experience--anyway. After all, nothing depends upon my
catching one of these tuna. It doesn't matter."
All of which attested to the singular state of my mind.
Another kite, another leader and double hook, another bait had to be
arranged. This took time. My impatience, my nervousness were hard to
restrain. Captain Dan was pale and grim. I do not know how I looked.
Only R. C. no longer looked at me.
As we put out the bait we made the discovery that the other anglers, no
doubt having ended their fight, were running down upon our particular
school of tuna. This was in line with our luck. Other schools of tuna
were in sight, but these fellows had to head for ours. It galled me when
I thought how sportsman-like I had been to attract their attention. We
aimed to head them off and reach the school first. As we were the
closest all augured well for our success. But gloom invested whatever
hopes I had.
We beat the other boat. We had just gotten our boat opposite the school
of tuna when Dan yelled: "Look out for that bunch of kelp! Jump your
bait over it!"
Then I spied the mass of floating seaweed. I knew absolutely that my
hook was going to snag it. But I tried to be careful, quick, accurate. I
jumped my bait. It fell short. The hook caught fast in the kelp. In the
last piece! The kite fluttered like a bird with broken wings and
dropped. Captain Dan reversed the boat. Then he burst out. Now Dan was a
big man and he had a stentorian voice, deep like booming thunder. No man
ever swore as Dan swore then. It was terrible. It was justified. But it
was funny, and despite all this agony of disappointment, despite the
other boat heading into the tuna and putting them down, I laughed till I
cried.
The fishermen in that other boat hooked a fish and broke it off. We saw
from the excitement on board that they had realized the enormous size of
these tuna. We hurried to get ready again. It was only needful to drag a
bait anywhere near that school. And we alternated with the other boat. I
saw those fishermen get four more strikes and lose the four fish
immediately. I had even worse luck. In fact, disaster grew and grew. But
there is no need for me to multiply these instances. The last three
tunas I hooked broke the double line on the first run. This when I had
on only a slight drag!
The other boat puddled around in our school and finally put it down for
good, and, as the other schools had disappeared, we started for home.
This was the most remarkable and unfortunate day I ever had on the sea,
where many strange fishing experiences have been mine. Captain Dan had
never heard of the like in eighteen years as boatman. No such
large-sized tuna, not to mention numbers, had visited Catalina for many
years. I had thirteen strikes, not counting more than one strike to a
bait. Seven fish broke the single line and three the double line,
practically, I might say, before they had run far enough to cause any
great strain. And the parting of the double line, where, if a break had
occurred, it would have come on the single, convinced us that all these
lines were cut. Cut by other tuna! In this huge school of hungry fish,
whenever one ran for or with a bait, all the others dove pellmell after
him. The line, of course, made a white streak in the water. Perhaps the
tuna bit it off. Perhaps they crowded it off. However they did it, the
fact was that they cut the line. Probably it would have been impossible
to catch one of those large tuna on the Tuna Club tackle. I hated to
think of breaking off hooks in fish, but, after it was too late, I
remembered with many a thrill the size and beauty and tremendous
striking energy of those tuna, the wide, white, foamy, furious boils on
the surface, the lunges when hooked, and the runs swift as bullets.
That experience would never come to me again. It was like watching for
the rare transformations of nature that must be waited for and which
come so seldom.
* * * * *
But, such is the persistence of mankind in general and the doggedness of
fishermen in particular, Captain Dan and I kept on roaming the seas in
search of tuna. Nothing more was seen or heard of the great drifting
schools. They had gone down the channel toward Mexico, down with the
mysterious currents of the sea, fulfilling their mission in life.
However, different anglers reported good-sized tuna off Seal Rocks and
Silver Canon. Several fish were hooked. Mr. Reed brought in a
one-hundred-and-forty-one-pound tuna that took five hours to land. It
made a dogged, desperate resistance and was almost unbeatable. Mr. Reed
is a heavy, powerful man, and he said this tuna gave him the hardest
task he ever attempted. I wondered what I would have done with one of
those two-or three-hundred-pounders. There is a difference between
Pacific and Atlantic tuna. The latter are seacows compared to these blue
pluggers of the West. I have hooked several very large tuna along the
Seabright coast, and, though these fish got away, they did not give me
the battle I have had with small tuna of the Pacific. Mr. Wortheim,
fishing with my old boatman, Horse-mackerel Sam, landed a
two-hundred-and-sixty-two-pound Atlantic tuna in less than two hours.
Sam said the fish made a loggy, rolling, easy fight. Crowninshield, also
fishing with Sam, caught one weighing three hundred pounds in rather
short order. This sort of feat cannot be done out here in the Pacific.
The deep water here may have something to do with it, but the tuna are
different, if not in species, then in disposition.