Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-09-10
SANTA CATALINA.
LuII in Ffshing-Heavy Tide
SWells.

AVALON, September S, 1889.
The experiences Of last Monday, when
raft of yellow tail crowded into our lit
tie harbor, and every man, woman and
child in Avalon went out and caught
from one to ten each, have not been re-
peated. That was phenomenal visit,
and it may be years before we look upon
it's like again. The glowing descriptions
of this episode, which appeared in the
HERALD and other papers, excited the
sporting proclivities in many of the old
habitues of Avalon who had gone home,
and brought them back here in large
numbers. The catch. continued very
favorable for two or three days, but after
Friday the inny beauties took them
selves to other parts, and there has been
lull in results such as has greatly dis
couraged those who came here to renew
q dozen yellow tails were landed on the
beach. Saturday the thing became
worse, and today there has been abso-
lutely no catch worth mentioning. One
large yellow tail was caught in the bay,
but outside there was neither amber nor
bottom fish to be had.
George K. Porter, Jesse Yarnell and
j. j. Mellus came down yesterday &C.
verely intent on landing jew fish. They
started for Seal rock this morning on the
Wanda, but they found the sea SO rough
and the tide.swell so high that they did
nothing. Indeed the tide-swell has been
so tremendous all along the island coast
for the past twenty-four hours that
everybody ascribes the almost utter pow
erty of fish to that cause. I believe they
are right. The full moon has brought
the spring tides, and there seems to be
the tail-end of far-away storm bat.
tering at our coast. The wash on the
beaches is unusually strong and high,
| and even swimming is interfered with by
| the great commotion.
There seems to be but very little dimin.
ution in the number of campers and no.
tel visitors here. Todsy's excursion WAS
we'll up to the mark of those at the
height of the season, and there are a
number of prominent Los Angelefios
here who have booked themselves at the
hotel for eight or ten days. Amongst
these are Mr.. J. s. Slausson and son.
Colonel Morford and daughters, Mr.. and
Mrs. Hadock, and Mrs. Beeson. There
are others who will only remain a day or
two.
The Paloms and Rambler are in port,
and quite feet of smaller craft.
One of the great troubles of the beach
is to get bait when you want it. Manya
fine days sport has been nipped in the
bud by the intending fishermen finding,
when they got up early in the morning,
that there was no bait to be had. 1
think if kept the hotel would remedy
this. Fishing is a great attraction, and
when it has to be given up for the want
of bait one feels rs if he had wasted his
time. The only bait that can be success
fully used for trolling is smelt and sar-
dimes. These are caught in seines. But
the only seine permanently here belongs
to an old islander. who draws it only
when he feels like it. Occasionally
Italian fishermen come over with .
seine, but they are not anxious to sell
bait. They say, "We sell ten cents
worth Of bait and the hotel gets ten dol
lars worth of fish for nothing. We keep
our bait and sell our fish,"
Next year. it is to be hoped that there
will be q reform in this bait business.
! and that somebody interested in keeping