Dan and I ran out off Silver Canon just on a last forlorn hope. The sea
was rippling white and blue, with a good breeze. No whales showed. We
left Avalon about one o'clock, ran out five miles, and began to fish.
Our methods had undergone some change. We used a big kite out on three
hundred yards of line; we tied this line on my leader, and we tightened
the drag on the reel so that it took a nine-pound pull to start the line
off. This seemed a fatal procedure, but I was willing to try anything.
My hope of getting a strike was exceedingly slim. Instead of a
flying-fish for bait we used a good-sized smelt, and we used hooks big
and strong and sharp as needles.
We had not been out half an hour when Dan left the wheel and jumped up
on the gunwale to look at something.
"What do you see?" I asked, eagerly.
He was silent a moment. I dare say he did not want to make any mistakes.
Then he jumped back to the wheel.
"School of tuna!" he boomed.
I stood up and looked in the direction indicated, but I could not see
them. Dan said only the movement on the water could be seen. Good long
swells were running, rather high, and presently I did see tuna showing
darkly bronze in the blue water. They vanished. We had to turn the boat
somewhat, and it began to appear that we would have difficulty in
putting the bait into the school. So it turned out. We were in the wrong
quarter to use the wind. I saw the school of tuna go by, perhaps two
hundred feet from the boat. They were traveling fast, somewhat under the
surface, and were separated from one another. They were big tuna, but
nothing near the size of those that had wrecked my tackle and hopes.
Captain Dan said they were hungry, hunting fish. To me they appeared
game, swift, and illusive.
We lost sight of them. With the boat turned fairly into the west wind
the kite soared, pulling hard, and my bait skipped down the slopes of
the swells and up over the crests just like a live, leaping little fish.
It was my opinion that the tuna were running inshore. Dan said they were
headed west. We saw nothing of them. Again the old familiar
disappointment knocked at my heart, with added bitterness of past
defeat. Dan scanned the sea like a shipwrecked mariner watching for a
sail.
"I see them!... There!" he called. "They're sure traveling fast."
That stimulated me with a shock. I looked and looked, but I could not
see the darkened water. Moments passed, during which I stood up,
watching my bait as it slipped over the waves. I knew Dan would tell me
when to begin to jump it. The suspense grew to be intense.
"We'll catch up with them," said Dan, excitedly. "Everything's right
now. Kite high, pulling hard--bait working fine. You're sure of a
strike.... When you see one get the bait hook him quick and hard."
The ambition of years, the long patience, the endless efforts, the
numberless disappointments, and that never-to-be-forgotten day among the
giant tuna--these flashed up at Captain Dan's words of certainty, and,
together with the thrilling proximity of the tuna we were chasing, they
roused in me emotion utterly beyond proportion or reason. This had
happened to me before, notably in swordfishing, but never had I felt
such thrills, such tingling nerves, such oppression on my chest, such a
wild, eager rapture. It would have been impossible, notwithstanding my
emotional temperament, if the leading up to this moment had not included
so much long-sustained feeling.
"Jump your bait!" called Dan, with a ring in his voice. "In two jumps
you'll be in the tail-enders."
I jerked my rod. The bait gracefully leaped over a swell--shot along the
surface, and ended with a splash. Again I jerked. As the bait rose into
the air a huge angry splash burst just under it, and a broad-backed tuna
lunged and turned clear over, his tail smacking the water.
"Jump it!" yelled Dan.
Before I could move, a circling smash of white surrounded my bait. I
heard it. With all my might I jerked. Strong and heavy came the weight
of the tuna. I had hooked him. With one solid thumping splash he
sounded. Here was test for line and test for me. I could not resist one
turn of the thumb-wheel, to ease the drag. He went down with the same
old incomparable speed. I saw the kite descending. Dan threw out the
clutch--ran to my side. The reel screamed. Every tense second, as the
line whizzed off, I expected it to break. There was no joy, no sport in
that painful watching. He ran off two hundred feet, then, marvelous to
see, he slowed up. The kite was still high, pulling hard. What with kite
and drag and friction of line in the water, that tuna had great strain
upon him. He ran off a little more, slower this time, then stopped. The
kite began to flutter.
I fell into the chair, jammed the rod-butt into the socket, and began to
pump and wind.
"Doc, you're hooked on and you've stopped him!" boomed Dan. His face
beamed. "Look at your legs!"
It became manifest then that my knees were wabbling, my feet puttering
around, my whole lower limbs shaking as if I had the palsy. I had lost
control of my lower muscles. It was funny; it was ridiculous. It showed
just what was my state of excitement.
The kite fluttered down to the water. The kite-line had not broken off,
and this must add severely to the strain on the fish. Not only had I
stopped the tuna, but soon I had him coming up, slowly yet rather
easily. He was directly under the boat. When I had all save about one
hundred feet of line wound in the tuna anchored himself and would not
budge for fifteen minutes. Then again rather easily he was raised fifty
more feet. He acted like any small, hard-fighting fish.
"I've hooked a little one," I began. "That big fellow missed the bait,
and a small one grabbed it."
Dan would not say so, but he feared just that. What miserable black
luck! Almost I threw the rod and reel overboard. Some sense, however,
prevented me from such an absurdity. And as I worked the tuna closer and
closer I grew absolutely sick with disappointment. The only thing to do
was to haul this little fish in and go hunt up the school. So I pumped
and pulled. That half-hour seemed endless and bad business altogether.
Anger possessed me and I began to work harder. At this juncture
Shorty's boat appeared close to us. Shorty and Adams waved me
congratulations, and then made motions to Dan to get the direction of
the school of tuna. That night both Shorty and Adams told me that I was
working very hard on the fish, too hard to save any strength for a long
battle.
[Illustration: A BLUE-FINNED PLUGGER OF THE DEEP--138-POUND TUNA]
[Illustration: AVALON, THE BEAUTIFUL]
Captain Dan watched the slow, steady bends of my rod as the tuna
plugged, and at last he said, "Doc, it's a big fish!"
Strange to relate, this did not electrify me. I did not believe it. But
at the end of that half-hour the tuna came clear to the surface, about
one hundred feet from us, and there he rode the swells. Doubt folded his
sable wings! Bronze and blue and green and silver flashes illumined the
swells. I plainly saw that not only was the tuna big, but he was one of
the long, slim, hard-fighting species.
Presently he sounded, and I began to work. I was fresh, eager, strong,
and I meant to whip him quickly. Working on a big tuna is no joke. It is
a man's job. A tuna fights on his side, with head down, and he never
stops. If the angler rests the tuna will not only rest, too, but he will
take more and more line. The method is a long, slow lift or pump of
rod--then lower the rod quickly and wind the reel. When the tuna is
raised so high he will refuse to come any higher, and then there is a
deadlock. There lives no fisherman but what there lives a tuna that can
take the conceit and the fight out of him.
For an hour I worked. I sweat and panted and burned in the hot sun; and
I enjoyed it. The sea was beautiful. A strong, salty fragrance, wet and
sweet, floated on the breeze. Catalina showed clear and bright, with
its colored cliffs and yellow slides and dark ravines. Clemente Island
rose a dark, long, barren, lonely land to the southeast. The clouds in
the west were like trade-wind clouds, white, regular, with level
base-line.
At the end of the second hour I was tiring. There came a subtle change
of spirit and mood. I had never let up for a minute. Captain Dan praised
me, vowed I had never fought either broadbill or roundbill swordfish so
consistently hard, but he cautioned me to save myself.
"That's a big tuna," he said, as he watched my rod.
Most of the time we drifted. Some of the time Dan ran the boat to keep
even with the tuna, so he could not get too far under the stern and cut
the line. At intervals the fish appeared to let up and at others he
plugged harder. This I discovered was merely that he fought the hardest
when I worked the hardest. Once we gained enough on him to cut the
tangle of kite-line that had caught some fifty feet above my leader.
This afforded cause for less anxiety.
"I'm afraid of sharks," said Dan.
Sharks are the bane of tuna fishermen. More tuna are cut off by sharks
than are ever landed by anglers. This made me redouble my efforts, and
in half an hour more I was dripping wet, burning hot, aching all over,
and so spent I had to rest. Every time I dropped the rod on the gunwale
the tuna took line--zee--zee--zee--foot by foot and yard by yard. My
hands were cramped; my thumbs red and swollen, almost raw. I asked Dan
for the harness, but he was loath to put it on because he was afraid I
would break the fish off. So I worked on and on, with spurts of fury and
periods of lagging.
At the end of three hours I was in bad condition. I had saved a little
strength for the finish, but I was in danger of using that up before the
crucial moment arrived. Dan had to put the harness on me. I knew
afterward that it saved the day. By the aid of the harness, putting my
shoulders into the lift, I got the double line over the reel, only to
lose it. Every time the tuna was pulled near the boat he sheered off,
and it did not appear possible for me to prevent it. He got into a habit
of coming to the surface about thirty feet out, and hanging there, in
plain sight, as if he was cabled to the rocks of the ocean. Watching him
only augmented my trouble. It had ceased long ago to be fun or sport or
game. It was now a fight and it began to be torture. My hands were all
blisters, my thumbs raw. The respect I had for that tuna was great.
He plugged down mostly, but latterly he began to run off to each side,
to come to the surface, showing his broad green-silver side, and then he
weaved to and fro behind the boat, trying to get under it. Captain Dan
would have to run ahead to keep away from him. To hold what gain I had
on the tuna was at these periods almost unendurable. Where before I had
sweat, burned, throbbed, and ached, I now began to see red, to grow
dizzy, to suffer cramps and nausea and exceeding pain.
Three hours and a half showed the tuna slower, heavier, higher, easier.
He had taken us fifteen miles from where we had hooked him. He was
weakening, but I thought I was worse off than he was. Dan changed the
harness. It seemed to make more effort possible.
The floor under my feet was wet and slippery from the salt water
dripping off my reel. I could not get any footing. The bend of that rod
downward, the ceaseless tug, tug, tug, the fear of sharks, the
paradoxical loss of desire now to land the tuna, the change in my
feeling of elation and thrill to wonder, disgust, and utter weariness of
spirit and body--all these warned me that I was at the end of my tether,
and if anything could be done it must be quickly.
Relaxing, I took a short rest. Then nerving myself to be indifferent to
the pain, and yielding altogether to the brutal instinct this
tuna-fighting rouses in a fisherman, I lay back with might and main.
Eight times I had gotten the double line over the reel. On the ninth I
shut down, clamped with my thumbs, and froze there. The wire leader sung
like a telephone wire in the cold. I could scarcely see. My arms
cracked. I felt an immense strain that must break me in an instant.
Captain Dan reached the leader. Slowly he heaved. The strain upon me was
released. I let go the reel, threw off the drag, and stood up. There the
tuna was, the bronze-and-blue-backed devil, gaping, wide-eyed, shining
and silvery as he rolled, a big tuna if there ever was one, and he was
conquered.
When Dan lunged with the gaff the tuna made a tremendous splash that
deluged us. Then Dan yelled for another gaff. I was quick to get it.
Next it was for me to throw a lasso over that threshing tail. When I
accomplished this the tuna was ours. We hauled him up on the stern,
heaving, thumping, throwing water and blood; and even vanquished he was
magnificent. Three hours and fifty minutes! The number fifty stayed with
me. As I fell back in a chair, all in, I could not see for my life why
any fisherman would want to catch more than one large tuna.
XIV
AVALON, THE BEAUTIFUL
If you are a fisherman, and aspire to the study or conquest of the big
game of the sea, go to Catalina Island once before it is too late.
The summer of 1917 will never be forgotten by those fishermen who were
fortunate enough to be at Avalon. Early in June, even in May, there were
indications that the first record season in many years might be
expected. Barracuda and white sea-bass showed up in great schools; the
ocean appeared to be full of albacore; yellowtail began to strike all
along the island shores and even in the bay of Avalon; almost every day
in July sight of broadbill swordfish was reported, sometimes as many as
ten in a day; in August the blue-fin tuna surged in, school after
school, in vast numbers; and in September returned the Marlin, or
roundbill swordfish that royal-purple swashbuckler of the Pacific.
This extraordinary run of fish appeared like old times to the boatmen
and natives who could look back over many Catalina years. The cause, of
course, was a favorable season when the sardines and anchovies came to
the island in incalculable numbers. Acres and acres of these little bait
fish drifted helplessly to and fro, back and forth with the tides, from
Seal Rocks to the west end. These schools were not broken up until the
advent of the voracious tuna; and when they arrived the ocean soon
seemed littered with small, amber-colored patches, each of which was a
densely packed mass of sardines or anchovies, drifting with the current.
It has not yet been established that swordfish feed on these schools,
but the swordfish were there in abundance, at any rate; and it was
reasonable to suppose that some of the fish they feed on were in pursuit
of the anchovies.
Albacore feeding on the surface raise a thin, low, white line of water
or multitudes of slight, broken splashes. Tuna raise a white wall,
tumbling and spouting along the horizon; and it is a sight not soon to
be forgotten by a fisherman. Near at hand a big school of feeding tuna
is a thrilling spectacle. They move swiftly, breaking water as they
smash after the little fish, and the roar can be heard quite a distance.
The wall of white water seems full of millions of tiny, glinting fish,
leaping frantically from the savage tuna. And when the sunlight shines
golden through this wall of white spray, and the great bronze and silver
and blue tuna gleam for an instant, the effect is singularly exciting
and beautiful.
All through August and much of September these schools of tuna,
thousands of them, ranted up and down the coast of Catalina, thinning
out the amber patches of anchovies, and affording the most magnificent
sport to anglers.
These tuna may return next year and then again they may not return for
ten years. Some time again they will swing round the circle or drift
with the currents, in that mysterious and inscrutable nature of the
ocean. And if a fisherman can only pick out the year or have the
obsession to go back season after season he will some day see these
wonderful schools again.
But as for the other fish--swordfish, white sea-bass, yellowtail, and
albacore--their doom has been spelled, and soon they will be no more.
That is why I say to fishermen if they want to learn something about
these incomparable fish they must go soon to Catalina before it is too
late.
The Japs, the Austrians, the round-haul nets, the canneries and the
fertilizer-plants--that is to say, foreigners and markets, greed and
war, have cast their dark shadow over beautiful Avalon. The intelligent,
far-seeing boatmen all see it. My boatman, Captain Danielson, spoke
gloomily of the not distant time when his occupation would be gone. And
as for the anglers who fish at Catalina, some of them see it and many of
them do not. The standard raised at Avalon has been to haul in as many
of the biggest fish in the least possible time. One famous fisherman
brought in thirteen tuna--nine hundred and eighty-six pounds of
tuna--that he caught in one day! This is unbelievable, yet it is true.
Another brought in eleven tuna in one day. These fishermen are
representative of the coterie who fish for records. All of them are big,
powerful men, and when they hook a fish they will not give him a foot of
line if they can help it. They horse him in, and if they can horse him
in before he wakes up to real combat they are the better pleased. All of
which is to say that the true motive (or pleasure, if it can be such)
is the instinct to kill. I have observed this in many fishermen. Any one
who imagines that man has advanced much beyond the savage stage has only
carefully to observe fishermen.
[Illustration: THE OLD AVALON BARGE WHERE THE GULLS FISH AND SCREAM]
[Illustration: THE END OF THE DAY OFF CATALINA ISLAND]
I have demonstrated the practicability of letting Marlin swordfish go
after they were beaten, but almost all of the boatmen will not do it.
The greater number of swordfish weigh under two hundred pounds, and when
exhausted and pulled up to the boat they can be freed by cutting the
wire leader close to the hook. Probably all these fish would live. A
fisherman will have his fun seeing and photographing the wonderful
leaps, and conquering the fish, and when all this is over it would be
sportsman-like to let him go. Marlin are not food fish, and they are
thrown to the sharks. During 1918, however, many were sold as food fish.
It seems a pity to treat this royal, fighting, wonderful, purple-colored
fish in this way. But the boatmen will not free them. My boatman claimed
that his reputation depended upon the swordfish he caught; and that in
Avalon no one would believe fish were caught unless brought to the dock.
It was his bread and butter. His reputation brought him new fishermen,
and so he could not afford to lose it. Nevertheless, he was persuaded to
do it in 1918. The fault, then, does not lie with the boatman.
The Japs are the greatest market fishermen in the world. And some five
hundred boats put out of San Pedro every day, to scour the ocean for
"the chicken of the sea," as albacore are advertised to the millions of
people who are always hungry. It must be said that the Japs mostly fish
square. They use a hook, and a barbless hook at that. Usually four Japs
constitute the crew of one of these fast eighty-horse-power motor-boats.
They roam the sea with sharp eyes ever alert for that thin white line on
the horizon, the feeding albacore. Their method of fishing is unique and
picturesque. When they sight albacore they run up on the school and slow
down.
In the stern of the boat stands a huge tank, usually painted red. I have
become used to seeing dots of red all over the ocean. This tank is kept
full of fresh sea-water by a pump connected with the engine, and it is
used to keep live bait--no other than the little anchovies. One Jap,
using a little net, dips up live bait and throws them overboard to the
albacore. Another Jap beats on the water with long bamboo poles, making
splashes. The other two Japs have short, stiff poles with a wire
attached and the barbless hook at the end. They put on a live bait and
toss it over. Instantly they jerk hard, and two big white albacore, from
fifteen to thirty pounds, come wiggling up on to the stern of the boat.
Down goes the pole and whack! goes a club. It is all done with swift
mechanical precision. It used to amaze me and fill me with sadness. If
the Japs could hold the school of albacore they would very soon load the
boat. But usually a school of albacore cannot be held long.
You cannot fish in the channel any more without encountering these Jap
boats. Once at one time in 1917 I saw one hundred and thirty-two boats.
Most of them were fishing! They ran to and fro over the ocean, chasing
every white splash, and they make an angler's pleasure taste bitter.
Fortunately the Japs had let the tuna alone, for the simple and good
reason that they had not found a way to catch the wise blue-fins. But
they will find a way! Yet they drove the schools down, and that was
almost as bad. As far as swordfish are concerned, it is easy to see what
will happen, now that the albacore have become scarce. Broadbill
swordfish are the finest food fish in the sea. They can be easily
harpooned by these skilful Japs. And so eventually they will be killed
and driven away. This misfortune may not come at once, but it will come.
In this connection it is interesting to note that I tried to photograph
one of the Austrian crews in action. But Captain Dan would not let me
get near enough to take a picture. There is bad blood between Avalon
boatmen and these foreign market fishermen. Shots had been exchanged
more than once. Captain Dan kept a rifle on board. This news sort of
stirred me. And I said: "Run close to that bunch, Cap. Maybe they'll
take a peg at me!" But he refused to comply, and I lost a chance to
serve my country!
The Japs, however, are square fishermen, mostly, and I rather admire
those albacore-chasers, who at least give the fish a chance. Some of
them use nets, and against them and the Austrian round-haul netters I am
exceedingly bitter. These round-haul nets, some of them, must be a mile
long, and they sink two hundred feet in the water. What chance has a
school of fish against that? They surround a school and there is no
escape.
Clemente Island, the sister island to Catalina, was once a paradise for
fish, especially the beautiful, gamy yellowtail. But there are no more
fish there, except Marlin swordfish in August and September. The great,
boiling schools of yellowtail are gone. Clemente Island has no
three-mile law protecting it, as has Catalina. But that Catalina law has
become a farce. It is violated often in broad daylight, and probably all
night long. One Austrian round-haul netter took seven tons of white
sea-bass in one haul. Seven tons! Did you ever look at a white sea-bass?
He is the most beautiful of bass--slender, graceful, thoroughbred,
exquisitely colored like a paling opal, and a fighter if there ever was
one.
What becomes of these seven tons of white sea-bass and all the other
tons and tons of yellowtail and albacore? That is a question. It needs
to be answered. During the year 1917 one heard many things. The
fish-canneries were working day and night, and every can of fish--the
whole output had been bought by the government for the soldiers. Very
good. We are a nation at war. Our soldiers must be properly fed and so
must our allies. If it takes all the fish in the sea and all the meat on
the land, we must and will win this war.
But real patriotism is one thing and misstatement is another. If there
were not so much deceit and greed in connection with this war it would
be easier to stomach.
As a matter of cold fact, that round-haul netter's seven tons of
beautiful white sea-bass did not go into cans for our good soldiers or
for our fighting allies. Those seven tons of splendid white sea-bass
went into the fertilizer-plant, where many and many a ton had gone
before!
It is not hard to comprehend. When they work for the fertilizer-plants
they do not need ice--they do not need to hurry to the port to save
spoiling--they can stay out till the boat is packed full. So often a
greater part of the magnificent schools of white sea-bass, albacore, and
yellowtail--splendid food fish--go into the fertilizer-plants to make a
few foreign-born hogs rich. Hundreds of aliens, many of them hostile to
the United States, are making big money, which is sent abroad.