The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 28, 1896, Page 18

18 | 1] An Exciting Experience With a Jewfish at Catalina Island. Told by Miss H. B. Freeman. Not & sportsman in sll Los Angeles County has won larger success or displayed more enthusiasm in jewfishing than Professor Charles Frederick Holder of Pasadena. To hear him tell how he hauled in & jewfish sets | one’s blood a-tingling. «“Mexican Joe,” he says, “one of the oldest | fishermen of Santa Catalina, was my osrsman. | We tossed the anchor over, the rope ran mer- | rily out, and the hook, baited with asix-pound | white fish, went hissing down. I sat silent for half an hour, holding the throbbing line, when | £uddenly I became eware that its tension had incressed to s steady pull; then came & jerk | that carsied my hand in the water. ‘Jewfish, sure,’ whispered Joe. Ipaid out the line winle he seized the anchor-line ready to haulup. When about six feet had gone over the gun- wale I stopped, and when the Jine came taut jerked the hook into the fish. “For a single second there was no_response; then came & jerk that almost lifted me from | the bost, and the line went hissing over the | rail like & living thing. Nothing could stop sucharushand I simply waited while Joe pulled up the anchor, when I grasped the line and braced back for the fight. The light boat whirled around like & top and away we went, an ominous wave of foam rising high around the bow. “A ten-foot shark never pulled harder than this gamy fish, and for five minutes it wasa question who was master. I took itin with the greatest difficulty, gaining ten feet, only to have the fish rush toward me and then dash away with an impetus that was more then irresistible. Occasionaly it would turn and dash to the bottom, making everything hum end sing. After giving and taking and haul- ing and easing off for twenty minutes, sud- denly the fish rushed up,and with a final effort I brought the black giant to the surface. For & moment I saw & pair of eyes s large as thoseof an ox, & rich chestnut back, and then, with & tremendous heave, the fish threw itself over, deluging me with water and half | capsizing the boat. It was the last struggle ! and with another haul I had the king of the | Pacific Coast fishes at hands’ length, where it rolled and tossed, 1ts huge tail bathing us with spray, protesting against its capture.” LSS The [lerced Salmon Trout That Was Gamy to the Last Degree. The Experience of Matthew Hamilton. A movel and exciting experience befell me during my last vacation, down on the Mereed River. For some time we were camped in the immediate vicinity.of the falls, and fish of all kinds, seemingly, from homely cats to the deinty trout, haa been biting in a manner dear to the heart of the most exacting. We lived in an atmosphere of fishy odors and glistening seales. > One warm morning, long before sunrise, T was off to an untried pool which had previ- ously attracted my attention, with a can full of big grasshoppers for bait,which I had easily stripped in their stupefied state at that early hour from the branches of the young willows, where they clusterea at night. For once the finny tribe refused to bite, and 1 began to think of removing. But seating myself upon the spreading roots of & great oak over the water, I was nearly asleep when with- out a second’s warning the pole shot trom my i then in another, now behind me, now in front, | must be tn the neighborhood of a good-sized drowsy gra\p and started down the river at a lively gait,\while I lost my balance and | tumbled into W deep hole. That thoroughly | awakened me, scrambling ashore I re- | moved with desper™ haste the few articles of | clothing which clung ™glassic folds of drip- | ping wetness to my anatos 2nd was quicklL doing a lively overhand in pursuis ~ ing pole and whatever might be the cause of | its departure. Finally it ceased in its race, and I thought the fish had escaped, but grasping the pole a strong jerk at the end of the line convinced me otherwise, and from the manner in which his fishship yanked and sawed, first this w. and again straight downward, I had an oppor- tunity of estimating his size, which I thought whale. How he did tug and pull! | 1 mentally blessed the happy thought which induced me to bring the big line that morn- ing, but here was & pretty quandary, Here | was the big fellow nearly twenty feet below | the surface firmly tangled among the snag and I rapidly tiring. Anidea. Reaching shore | I took a brief breathing svell and grasping an | open knife in one hand soon reached the an- | chorage. Looking down through the clear, | still water I caught e glimpse of my prey and | the sight made me all the more eager to have him. Down I went, down, down, until the surface looked dark and green. The big beauty | saw me and he darted so frantically that I ex- pected to see the line snap, but luck favored me. Reaching the s I wound the line about my left hand several times, then cut the cord above and made for the surface fairly breathless, the big fish in tow. He was still game, but I drew him up aad jabbed him with the knife, which speedily to0k all the fight and dash out of him. Reac ingshore I had an opportunity to look him overand found him to be s fine salmon. Th scales told the weight to be 11 pounds. SRah A e A String of Trout That Got Mixed With a String of Catfish. Told by J: Sims. Jack Sims of Chico tells & fish story on W. H. | Peacock, his fellow-citizen, that will bear re- | peating. Mr. Peacock has the reputation of | being one of the luckiest and most skillful dis- ciples of Walton in Butte County, but this story would seem to show the evil side of a good reputation, the dangers that beset one in an honest effort to live up to his reputation. Recently Peacock, Sims and Colonel Mecln. tosh went te Mud Creek on 2 fair Sunday wit! rod and reel in hand. Itwas their avowed purpose to catch fish, ana Peacock—with gen- erous anticipation—promised all his friends in Chico that he would bring them back one or more fine mountain trout apiece. When they Evidently the gods of the w. been properly propitiated. The trout did not bite—or if they bit at all took tiny nibbles and declined to swallow the hooks of any of the three. tention then to catfish—after exchanging ‘worthless fish He went on up the stream and tried and tried, but invain. As he was coming back to the rendezvous very much digusted he met an Indian boy who sold him a beautiful string of trout for $4—a mighty big price for even so great a reputation as Mr. Peacock’s. But the boy saw his chance and Pescock paid the cash. Sims and the colonel had an idea where the fine string of tront came from, but they said nothing—only when Peacock’s back was turned the catfish changed places in Peacock’s basket with the trout. friends much sage advice about how to catch wout as the three wended homeward. Of course, when Peacock bade his friends adien and strode proudly up Main street, everybody asked, “Well, what Juck?” Peacock answered with becoming modesty, albeit not underesti- mating the size and number of the string he thought was in his basket. At last he met Colonel, Park Henshaw, Major Nichols and General J. W. B. Montgomery, who insisted | upon inspecting the fine catch. Mr. Peacock | stopped, opened his basket and drew forth—! Can you not imagine the rest of it beiter than Icould tellit? He drew forth that string of catfish. Had to Haul Away the Catch in Drays and Express Wagons. Told by L. A. Livernash. “There are fish stories and fish stories,” ob- served Editor J. J. Livernash of the Healds- burg Enterprise the other day, as he squared himself on top of a eracker-box in & local gro- cery store and bit off the end of a fresh cigar. “I claim to be something of a fisherman my- self,” continued he, “and have landed more than one trout so large that I had to break its back and fold it up to get it into my basket. “But I'm not going to dilate on wy own fish- ing. Iwanttotell you & story I overheard in a Los Angeles restaurant not long since. Two ters had not | Sims and the colonel turned their at- | winks and nods—which, of course, bit freely | enough, and they soon had & big mess of these | ~ But Peacock was not easily discouraged. | Mr. Peacock talked wisely and gave his two | strangers sat opposite me at the table, and they were talking of the subject so dear to the heart of Ike Walton. The younger man was either a wonderful fisher or an unmitigated liar. His | story run ir this fashion: «iLast summer 1 was up in Lake County for an outing. I had taken with meacommon three-pronged gig, although why I took it I am at a loss to tell, as I never threw a gig in my life before. One morning, gig in hand, I went down to the lake, and to ascertain the depth of the water Iran my gig down. It had hardly reached the bottom until Ifelt a ter- rific tugging, and I immediately drew it out to find that 1 had an immense carp on each prong. « T kept this lick up for two hours and & HE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, dozen big fellows would leap clear out of the l water for the worms, and not a few werei actuslly eaught on the fly. Hooking fish in the air is amusement that sportsmen don’t have every day, but we got lots of them that way. Westayed by that pool until we got all wecould carry and our bait gave out. Then, just fer fun, we fished with bare hooks, and d> you believe it the hungry beggars actually would get caught on the naked hooks. It was | most too good & snap to give to the neighbors, so Gil stocked the pool with a few chuuks of stale meat and we kept the remainder from starving until we cleaned out the hole, which we did about the time it driedup. How many fish did we take out of that pool? I'll never tell you. You would put me down for a man who has no regard for his word, and that might interfere with me selling you a horse some day.” % e — | A Cutthroat Trout That Swallowed a Flask of Whisky. 4As William Rawlison Tells It “Talking about fish,” said Billy Rawlison, the well-known expert fisherman of Truckee, “Lguess the cutthroat trout has the most un- common appetite of any member of that fam- ily. You take a three or four pounder and he cen give an ostrich or billy-goat cardsand spades and then swallow the whole jack-pot. “I have seen them with woodrats, water- snakes, clgar stumps and buckekin crackers from whips stored away in their insides. But what particularly brings thissubject to mind | isa thing that happened on Donner Lake re- half, as fast as I could put the gig in the water and pull it up. Ihad time. I had to move slo could scatter thes— U0, ANA only quit when e exhausted. In those two four tons of carp time I naturally asked the speaker what he did Wwith the fish, Do with then with them. 1 came back tocamp and reported my catch. The next morning, realizing the necessity for immediate action, the Sheriff of Lake County sent two drays and an cxpress- wagon to gather up the dead fish and baul | them off to a hog ranch. Gt A The Marine Monster That Frightens the Italian Fishermen. ‘The Experience of Frank Galucchl. Frank Galucchi, a native of sunny Italy, who follows his vocation as a fisherman on the waters of the bay and outside when the we that will last in his memory es long as he lives. He declares thathe hooked some great nonster of the deep that is unknown to men, and his llow-fishermen about Fisherman’s wharf believe him, some of them telling ot similar experiences in days gone by. They assert that s marine giant inhabits the waters off this coast, and that it has mever been brought (o the surface. Galuechi had put over his codlines well out- side, near the Marin County shore, and made all fast about his little boat. The heatof the sun, or perbaps lack of rest the night previous, | had made him a little sleepy, and while wait- ing for his quarry to fasten to the hooks he stretched himself out on the thwarts and dozed into dreamlaud. Fishermen, like sailors, sleep with one sense on the alert, and ere long Galucchi noticed that the gentle rolling of his boat in the swell had changed somewhat, and that she seemed 10 be moving. He was on his feetin an instant, and saw thata number of hislines were tau and that the boat was being dragged seaward, anchor and all. The movement was slow and "SOME SHA reached the canyon the trio separated. Sims | and the colonel went one way and Peacock sought out his own favorite nooks. | | apparently irresistible, and totally unlike that caused by the frantic dragging of a hooked fish. Pull ashe might on the combined lines the fisherman could Dot turn the unknown broke them loose singly and made for home | with a1l speed. He declares that the tugging was not that of a fish, but more like that of a great turtle walking along the bottom. He his lines and taken the baiton several before turning seaward. e iGNy Trout That Were | Se Hungry They Snapped at | the Bare Hooks. | Told by George Van Gorden. George Van Gorden, the well-known horse- man of San Luis Obispo County, tells a re- | Simeon Creck near his ranch, which is a few like many others on the Pacific Coast,is a | raging torrent in the rainy season, and in the dry season it is as dry as & country Judge. It rises in the Santa Lucia Mountains, about fifteen miles from the ocean, pursues a wind- | emptiesinto a big, deep lagoon, which is di- i vided from the ocean by a sandbar, which | breaks open every winter. | This break in the bar affords hundreds of salmon an opportunity to enter the stream during the spawning season, and every year the lagoon is filled with salmon-trout which run upstream almost to the mountain tops when the water in the creek 1s high. “A few yesrs ago,” said Van Gorlen, “there | had been a wet spell followed by & long period | in which no rain fell atall. The creek was at | first bank full, but after a few weeks of pleas- | ant weather it subsided until only deep pools | remained here and there where the current had struck the toot of the hills. There was plenty of water running under the coarse gravel-bed, but fish can’t swim through gravel, or at least no fish that I have ever seen. One day when my younger brother, Gilbert, was hunting cattle he ran across one of these pools well up the creek, and it did not take him long to discover that it was literally swarming with fine salmon-trout that were likely to starve to death, as they could not get down to the la- goon, and they had devoured everything in the pool that fish counld eat. “The next day we started out for that pool well provided with bait. We used common angle worms, ordinary lines and hooks and willow poles. None of your fancy fly-casting rigs. The first worm had hardly got wet be- fore it was down a big trout’s throat, hook and all. The next fared the same, and the splash- ing of the hooked fish did not scare the others alittle bit. Giland I varied the monotony of pulling fish out of the water by holding the impaled worms & little above the water and seeing the fish jump for the bait. “‘Well, it wes great sport, Sometimes half a 2" T couldn’t do anything | ther permits, hed en experience Monday | thing from its course, and in fear he finally | thinks it must have wandered about among | markable story of & fishing experience on San | | miles irom the town of Cambria. This creek, | ing course down the San Simeon Valley and | cently. “We had made & rather poor eatch in the ~om~aing and were just seiting out again, after | having ™ dinner at tha head of the lake, when old Alb ave us & nice flask to bring luck. We tro! < to about Darronville's place and caught seNgal fine fish. Then, upon celebrating, we fouN] the contents of Albert’s flask rather warm A stout line was tied to its meck aud the bott\ thrown over- board to cool off. | *“We then headed over toward | and had not been there more tham\balf an ;hour when we saw a whopping big tr\it just a-playing horse on top of the water. He jump into the air and shake himself, roll \yver | and over and then shoot about like a strea\, of [ iightning. We could not guess the cause\ot | his hilarity until one of the crowd went i | pull up the bottle and found only its neck. | We then concluded that Mr. Trout had nailed | | | i | the bottle and got clean drunk on its contents. Alter trying unsuccessfully all tae ways we knew of to catch that fish, we had an inspira- tion. We steamed back to Albert's, gotan- | other flask and tied a heavy line with three treble hooks ontoit. When we got back our gante was still having his fun. Wo tooka circle arcund him and then dragged the bottle close up. He saw it and made for it, but | ed it three times before we got him. He | weighed fourteen pounds, and in his stomach | we found not only the remains of our first | flask, but the second one and a corkscrew, with which we opened the bottle and drank to our success from its undamaged contents. 'he bottle and corkscrew are now on exhi. bition in Truckee.” . The Perils of | Jewfishing at Catalina and A Lucky Accident. Told by W. R. MclIntosh. Taking jewfish at Santa Catalina Island has always been attended with more or less risk to fishermen. These fish are ready takers of hooks properly baited, and are “gamy” to the last degree. A jewfish to attract any at- tention at Catalina now must weigh atleast 100 pounds, and there have been pienty of | them landed which nave weighed 200 pounas. Oune of the most thrilling adventures ever ex- perienced in this exciting sport happened to B. Macready of the Los Angeles Journal and F. V. Pendeerton, a retired capitalist of this City. These geutlemen in & rowboat one afternoon hooked an enormous jewfish, which towed them about three miles out to sea and around to the lower point of the island, which is bare and rocky. While nesr the shore the great fish | was brought to the surface in what was sup- posed to be an exhausted condition. Justas | they were about to lift the monster into the rather frail craft the fish gave a tremendous jump and overturned the boat. The men had fastened the line to the craft so that, notwith- standing their inability to pay any further a tention to Mr. Fish, he was still held by the line. But now they became seriously alarmed as to their own fate. Their best efforts were em- ployed to regain a handhold on the boat, then too far from shore for the best swimmer to consider himself safe. And to add to their consternation, they soon discovered that their “catch” was towing the overturned bosat farther out to sea, where the breakers wer,, | watery grave began flitting throug/. their dis- tressed minds, They were percl/sd upon the bottom of the upturned boat, and were in trepidation lest by a sudden yanfk they should lose their baiance and fall into t je sea. They were almost in the agny of despair when with joy inexpressible fhey observed that the sea monster had turndd toward the shore. This course was pursued|until shallow weter was reached when anot\er turn was made in the direction of deep ws\er. In a mo- ment the fishermen agreed to \bandon the helpless craft and swim for their\ives, leay- ing fish and boat behind. With nerve and fortitnde they both Ngched the rocky point, greatly exhausted, but ®Ngch grazified that they were alive. After a lons tramp they reached Avalon Bay and recounted their adventure to a few intimate friends, who on the following day took a sailboat and went in search of the overturned skiff, but so far as known it was never recovered. An incident of the trip across the island on the return is that these gentlemen found the cropping of a lead mine, which, being reported to ons Benson, was afterward located and worked with gread success. A S Remarkable Fish That Are Found in the Stockton Baths. Told by John Craig. There are some queer fish in Jackson'’s baths, just south of Stockton. No one, not even the most expert of those who handle the rod, seems to be able to tell just what the fish are. They look something like a pike, and some of the knowing ones say they resemble a “split-tail.” The queer part of the whole thing is how the fish ever got into the big swimming-tank. Several years ago some cat- fish were placed in the tank, but they died off as fast as they were placed in the water. Some carp were tried and they fared a little better, but did not seem to thrive as they do else- where. The water is full of minerals and is of & peculiar greenish color. It was finally decided to keep ail fish out of the big tavk, and wire netting with fine mesh- ings was placed over the outlet of the tank where the water runs off and into the adjacent sloughs, and thence on into the San Joaquin River. The stream outside is always filled with minnows and small fish, but they never get through the fine wire netting. Several months 8go, however, some small fish began to make their appearance in the tank. They were a trifle larger than the ordinary minnow, MPLE FISH YARNS THAT SHOWWHAT CALIFOR- NIANS CAN DO IN THAT LINE JUNE 28, 1896 aging the place for Mr. Pearson, to the strange { antics of the fish. Their eyeballs protruded, and they swam about as though blinded and dazed. In a few days they seemed more at home in the water, and their eyeballs receded until the heads of the little fellows looked like those of other fish. They grew rapidly and now many are 8s much as a foot long, and there are hundreds of them in the large tank, though none appear in the smaller covered tanks. The attaches of the place cannot account for the presence of the fish, except that they came from some subterranean passage with the water that is constantly flowing from the gas wells. The | ‘water at the baths comes from three large gas wells that are bored to a great depth and bring up an immense volume of water all the time. The men at the baths are firm in their belief that they come up from the wells, as they say there is absoluteiy no other way for them to get into the tank. The fine netting is so arranged that no fish can get into the baths | from outside streams to deposit their spawn. The other night Donald McRae of THE CALL business office, while swimming in the tank, caught one of the larger fish and threw it up on the bridge that crosses the tank. He was | very anxious to see what sort of fish it was, but before he could elamber out it had flopped back into the w. - e A Fish That Grew in a Human Skull and Became Circular. Told by Mary W. Edwards. “The strangest fish story I ever heard was an verience I had myself,” said Judge Scudder ond and myself started out on Salmon Creek afforded \mon, trout and salmon-trout as well, snd many were the stories of mam- moth fishes caught tNere which were waited to tination; toall of whic East listened incredulou: parrow defile, with precipit\ys sides winding around considerably \(ter leaving | Freestone finally empties into the \acific, and the Ocean View House—tramping up\the nar- row canyon each morning with bait 1\ selves as well as the fishes. “We had good sport—fine luck, in fact two days, and on the third day I chose a v? wild spot and seated myself on a large roc overhanging the creek. I fished with a line and rod, using the same old-fashioned sort of | worm Idid as a boy. There was no need to use the more scientific fly when fish were so easily caught. “The Easterner wasdown stream a little way, and everything was 1utensely solemn and quiet. When I felta fierce puil on the line [ LLLLLLLLLLELLN roused up at once and pulling up, whatshould I see come bobbing to the surface but a human skull, which. to all appearances, had swal- lowed the bait through its eyes. Naturally my otherwise steady nerves were considerably shaken, and with a sort of howl I started back suddenly, which motion swung the grew- some thing rather sharply against a rock, whereat it cracked apart and the several elief—slid off into the stream, gon my line a most peculiar looking fish, almost white and forming an almost periect ring. ! “I quickly jerked the hook out of its gil, and let itdrop into the clear water, whoss it keeping its circular shape. swim, but twisted around in moved with a wheel-like nZfon. My friend, who had been attracted_#7 my howl, arrived We afterward came to the conclusion thet the fish, when small, had strayed into the skull and probably through some motion of its own had turned the ruin over and so closed its mode of egress, though it could easily sur- vive and grow on the food which came floating by, and there it continued togrow,only ina ring, till the worm, falling through one of the eye-sockets, provided & mode of relief from its cramped quarters. “We quit fishing for that day, and it was some time before I could eat fish without a thought of this strangely imprisoned curio.” T The Man Who Hooked a Fish That Ran Up the Tree. Told by W. L. Robertson. “Did I ever tell you of the fishing experience I hNGxo Bonlder Creek & couple of yearsago?” asked W. L. Roberts™=Jormerly of Santa Rosa. “There were several of ™\gamping there and all were expert flycasters. > of the party returned to camp with- his fish™\7 tackle all out of kilter and said that a mile ONgo up the stream he had dropped his line into a N\ p pool and hooked the largest trout he ever faNgned onto. He tried to play his prize, but the ri\cal tore the tackle all to pieces. The next w\v | it another cast for the monarch of the pool an met with no better success, he too returning minus some of his outfit. For several days the sly old fellow would not rise to anything we could throw to him. I made up my mind to have thas fish or stay there all year. I rigged my tackle and ocautiously ap- proached the hole. The pool is about twenty feet across and it narrowed down to three feet where the creek passed under a fallen tree to & riffie beyona. The water was about eight feet deep near the bank w here I stood, and trees and underbrush surrounded the water hole. With great care §o as not to make any noise I adjusted my rod and cautiously ex- tended it,so as to drop my fly close tothe and when they first made their appearance they acted so strangely that Tom Towle, the | custodian of the batning suits, called the at- tention of Frank Hopkins, who was then man- ledge of rocks where the big fish maae his home. Ihad hardly doneso when there was a‘‘swish” and the water broke, revealing & beautiful trout, but not the one 1 wasatter. In a second my reel was spinning, for the fel- low had been well hooked. Here and there he darted and I was kept pretty busy for a min- ute playing him away from the dangerous root that extended into the pool. Inmy ex- citement my foot slipped a little and before I could recover fully thirty feet of line had | been run off the reel and the gamy little fel- low was down the stream, having darted under the body of the fallen tree. He bad gained the riffic below. Then came a splash and a jerk on the line that I could notac- count for, as I could not see beyond the tree for the brush, followed by & steady hard pull Ikept my line taut, but it was of no use. Foot by foot the line was taken from me—fifty, sixty, seventy-five feet—still I could notstop When the end wes reached I was amazed, for the strain was terrific, but I held on until the line snapped, or rather the knot slipped trom the reel. Awasy went the line down stream. I dropped the rod and ran around the pool hoping to catch up with the fish some- where down the creek. Fiity feet below the log I was fairly paralyzed to see my line cut- ting across the path and up the hillside. I wondered if that fish had legs and was escap- ing over the hills, for I heard the underbrush crackling some distance ahead. Seizing the line I followed, pulling as I serambled through the brush. Suddenly the strain ceased and I worked my way along to the foot of a small sycamore tree. The line ran up the trunk, and | glancing upward I saw what I had on my hook. There on a limb sat a terrified coon with the hook firmly fastened in the tough hide on the corner of his mouth. Tame Fish That Would Come When the Boys Whistled. Told by H. B. Pendergast. Nye truth of this story can be vouched for by suci\reliable citizens of Yolo County as Judge E. T.\ampton, Professor Barr, George W. Rup- ley, DR\George H. Jackson, and the old veteran fisherm\n, Hon. Jason Watkins. A few \ummers ago the canalin the eastern part of tike county was full of salmon that had come in t\ the tule waters early in the spring, and were \\{t in the canal after the water had subsided in the Sacramento River. Some men and boys copceived the idea of putting wire screens acrc\s the canal, & mile or o apart, then by form\1g & line of persons and wading from one screq to the other, dniving the fish before them, t.\?y would catch.wagon-loads of big, fine salmo\. Some boys, while engaged in this sport, ca\ght one day & huge salmon, at least four feet \ong, that- had been injured by running agair\ta snag,or in some other manner, so they tu)aed him loose. This happened seiveral times until the fish became quite genti| and would come to the water’s edge wheneler the boys whistled to him, and would be fed by them with bread, worms, etc. One of Jhe boys became possessed with the idea that /ey could have some sport with old “Sam,” 7/id, carrying the idea into execution, he oy day caught the fish, and fastening a strofig cord around the fore part of Mr, Salmon/ie mounted astride of him, and down the canal at more than As soon as one of the screens /led the fish stopped and another boy /e, and away they went for the other The fish seemed to enjoy the sport, 571 would flop his tail and jump around in ne water, while the boys were shouting with laughter. This sport continued through the spring, until the poor old fish died, on account of the water getting so low and so warm in the canal, and the boys buried him with all the nonors he deserved. The Wonderful Luck of Two Fishermen in Mendocino County. ‘Upon the authority of Joseph Allen. A. V. Phillips, an employe of the Southern Pacific Company, now living in Tulare, wen fishing some time ago on the Bell River, f Mendocino County. Far up in the hills, wisere the trout prevail, the stream courses al comparatively level strip of country for|the distance of something like half a mile. Wth a friend he drove to this spot, having preNi- ously arranged bait and lines and hooks. M Phillips had thoughtfully collected an oyster can full of grasshoppers to be used as bait in case the trout declined to accept the fly. He cast in his flyhook, but the wily gamesters did not appear to be hungry. To wake up the fish he drove the horse into the bitof the stream, the water being about knee-deep, and cast in his line with & live hopper on the hook. No sooner had the hook struck the water than a trout seized it and was quickly landed in the buggy. The sport was continuved driving up the stream, landing the trout in the buggy, until the stock of hoppers was exhausted. When they ceased fishing they found they had 150 trout in the buggy, varying in length from 6 to 10 inches. ‘This, Mr. Phillips says, was the best sport he ever enjoyed fishing, and as the fishing season is at hand again he s going to take a layoff and hunt that same trout spot again. It Had a Miscellaneous Conglomeration In Its Stomach. Caught by John Hamlin. The pig has always been held up to scorn and contumely as the greediest and least to be emulated of all the living creatures of the world, but it can’t hold a candle to a fish of the sculpin family that is common in the waters of the bay, and, in fact, all along the cosst. This creature is ecalled by the fishermen capisori, and by those who are unfamiliar with piscatorial nomenclature plain “hog” fish. There seems to be no limit to its capacity, and one caught off the Bey Farm Island bridge at Alameda by John Hamlin, the bridge tender, a few days ago, puts it in the front rank of the gluttons. The fish took a large and succulent worm impaled for the undoing ota porgie. His bite was voracious and determined, and when hauled up his stomach was found to contain three crabs, each about the size of a silver dolla1, a fish fully three inches long, several barnacles and & piece of liver the size of & walnut. The fish itself was not over ten inches long. The stomach was so distended as to make a lump the size of an egg on the under side of the fish. mutag How a Ukiah Trio Gained Waltonesque Reputations. Divulged by Frank L. Perkins. There is an incident in connection with a fishing expedition in which I engaged in Men- doeino County that will ever remain grean in my memory. By it the reputations of Attorney J. A, Cooper, & local sportsman named Fitz- gerald and myself were firmly esteblished. Cooper, Fitzgerald and myself set forth in a buggy for Walker Creek, which flows through Walker Valley about twelve miles north of Ukiah. Arrived at the fishing ground, the two proceeded to whip the stream towards its source for a mile or two and then returned. Fitzgerald returned first. When I inquired his luck, he ovened his basket and sadly gazed upon fifty-three small fish. When the attor- ney returned he also developed a marked re- luctance to showing thecontents of his basket, but finally admitted that his luck was limited to thirty-seven. “Our reputations are ruined,” groaned the disciple of Blackstone. “*We will have to sneak into town by an un-. frequented road,” said Fitzgerald. Suddenly a bright idea flashed into the se- date attorney’s mind, and he astonished us by jumping into the air and cracking his heels together. “Ihave it,” he fairly shouted; “get in and help me and we are all right.” He speedily unfolded his plan and we went Whe/i we drove intc\town that night and stopsed in front of the\@rand Hotel all our Znds crowded round tc\see the result of the atch. It was about 8 oklock in the evening and the light wasdim, | “‘Gaze on these beautidy,” exclaimed Fitz- gerald, dragging a baske§ into view. “There are just 563 beauties §n there. Look at Cooper’s basket here. Hethas 672 more. And even Perkins stayed witl§ the team and man. aged to catch & whole budketiul—over 300.” [ Gl ik [ A / (