Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/144

126 first as dead as the proverbial flounder.

This tuna was an erratic fellow. He soon gave up sulking and came to the surface to wheel about the boat in great circles; now submitting to the reeling-in process; now rushing away, hammering at the line with sturdy blows, to rise and repeat the rushing-in trick time and again. The endurance point would soon have been reached and another angler reduced hors de combat by the tuna when a decided lapse was perceptible. The struggles were not so furious, and the big fish could be reeled in. On he came, running around the boat. "Gently!" whispered the boatman, fingering his gaff nervously. "Now, sir!" A gentle swing and the big gaff hook slipped beneath the white belly of the fish and a few seconds later he slides into the boat, nearly six feet of gleaming blue and silver; eyes big and staring; head powerful, beating the bottom with blows that fairly threaten the boat.

Imagine a mackerel weighing 150 pounds, colored as described, with rows of small yellow fins or finarettes reaching back from the dorsal and neutral fins and some idea of the tuna may be had—the fish that towed our boat at least five miles and performed prodigies of valor. The tunas were leaping all about us, but one such fish was enough pleasure and excitement and we turned toward Avalon. It was the perfection of sea fishing; being twenty miles out to sea in water as clear as crystal, yet the tuna grounds were in shore along the rocky cliffs of the picturesque island.

The tuna is the game fish par excellence of these waters; a famous leaper and the most powerful fish of its size known. On the records of the Tuna Club are accounts of boats being towed from seven to twenty miles, and nearly every fish caught made a struggle worthy of record. The largest tuna taken with rod and reel weighed 183 pounds and fought its captor, the president of the club, four hours.

The club, with its three hundred members, advocates certain methods which