Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1894-11-27
} JEWFISH.
GGLlNG FOR MARINE MONSTERS IN 9 SAN DIEGO BAY.


 The Part Toothpicis Plny-The Run With
 Keg.-Members of the Bass Family That
 weigh Hundreds of Pounds.
 Don't talk to man from southern California about black bass fishing, or he will make your best bass story fee ble. pitiful thing. He will tell you of black bass that could swallow tho big Rest days catch you ever made and take ill your creel for dessert without as much as gulping. Voice doubt, and the man from San Diego will pull from his fishing traps something that looks like one fiuked ships anchor. That is what he fishes with for the strange, monstrous black bass ill the bays and 8pout the islands of the southern Cali I8rrnia coast They don't call them black bass down there, though the fish com missioners say they are, and the natu- ralists have identified them by fins and bones and form with the gamy two and oven to trout.
 # The men who catch these fish that sometimes weigh 1, 1000 pounds call them jewfish--a corruption of junefish The last is translation of one of their Mex. loan names. Probably they were called 1unefsh from the fact that they are plentiful along the shores in the late spring and early summer. No matter how he got his name, the jewish is a wonder. He looks like bass fisherman's nightmare when they get him out of the water. Every fin and mark is there, magnifed out of all proportion. His scales are as big as half dollars, his mouth is a gaping chasm. and the spikes sof his dorsal fin are bigger than tenpen- ny nails.
 The process of catching a jewish is Progressive and interesting one. Tho zaishers begin at the beginning. With bent pins or dip nets they look for min nows or sardelles. The quarry secured, it promptly becomes bait, and the con- course is treated to smelt fishing. Then comes the snelt's turn ill the success s1on He Is impaled, and the fisherman, with heavier rod and larger hook, goes to the other side of the wharf for halibut or a sea bass.
 When the bait, dead or alive is ready, the stoutest armed man on the wharf picks up the line. He swings the two or three pounds of bait around his head like an Indian does the bolas and hurls it seaward. The great line, as thick as lead pencil, coils out after the hook, and that is nearly all until the fish comes along.
 Incidentally toothpieIs play quite part i'll the fishing. Each fisherman takes a handful with him when he leaves the breakfast table. They stick one in 6 crack at the top of pile and loosely loop the line around it. The shore part of the line is eoiled on the wharf, and the end is fast to an empty powder keg or some such thing that will float well. On tho toothpiek is stuck bit of white rag, and as half dozen or dozen lines are used at once there is string of these little signal flags all along the dock. The fisherman has nothing more to do for awhile than to watch the flags When one goes down, it means that Something has taken the bait After gathering in the barracuda heads or the impa1ed halibut the jewish starts away like the locomotive on fast eX press. Down goes the signal flag Everybody around runs for the line They know they can't hold the fish, but the resistance makes it harder for him and helps them to tire him out-the ul- innate object. The great fish does not struggle at first, but moves steadily sea- ward, pulling the line through the mems hands. Occasionally. when the fish weighs less than 200 pounds, they can tire him out without paying out all of the line, but usually it all goes, and presently the struggle is transferred to the water. The empty powder keg bounces over the water most erratical- ly, the men chase it in boat, and when they catch it hold on. Then the real fun of jewfshing begins It is just sport for a fish of any size to tow whitehall around the bay, and itis pret- ty rough sailing i'll his wake AS soon as he realizes that there is fight on the jewish seems to forgot that he is staid bottom fish. All the steam of his black bass ancestors gets riley, and he plunges and turns, twists and strikes Some where down ill the cavern of his gullet he has an arrangement of bone like Q couple of millstones. and when he dis covers he cannot spit out the hook he tries to swallow it and grind the line apart so the slack has to be carefully attended to- There are some tremendous fish i'll San Diego bay, and though the hooks are made of hand forged tool steel they have snapped many of them.
 If everything goes well, if the hook holds and tho fish does not grind the line, if he steers away from submerged buoy chains and docks, the fight must end ill the death of the fish. Sometimes he tows the boat for three hours before his strength is gone and he is hauled to the surface. The death struggle is worst of all. The fish is dragged to the top and lies ther,, apparently all but dead Then they drive harpoon into him, and tho sting of the steel starts all his life again. The harpoon line holds him near the surface and he makes a great race for little while, but of course it cannot last At the end the fish is lowed back to the dock, and there the floating population of San Diego is assembled. Every ybody gets hold of a rope and hoists the giant fish upon the dock, and there the tired monster fioun ders, its mouth gaping like q tunnel and its eyes, big as baseballs, starting