News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1894-10-04
A MILE or FISHING LINE.
Catching Sharks by the Dozen on the Cal
ifornia Coast.

Crawling over the rocks On the La
guna beach, near San Juan, in southern
California, that hid countless ane-
mones under richly colored seaweeds, l
came to a little cave where the fisher
men make their headquarters. y great
bluff formed the shelter, and as deep
water came inshore harbor was made
for landing the dories. a little shanty
ON the high sand, a dozen boats, pile
of crawfish traps, the tails of several
sharks, told the story, and as a center
piece a grizzly old fellow, the generals
simo. He was waiting for the baiters,
for the line he used needed not one
man, but dozen or more to bait it.
As we stood there they began to come
in from the hills and over the beach
from out of the hooks and corners. The
tackle used was a fishline a mile in
length. On each end was an anchor and
a buoy in the shape of a sOldered up oil
can, and at every three feet or so of
this line was a hook-600 or more being
needed for n single line. The line was
laid out in coils, and the men, sitting
around, baited the hooks, replaced them
when necessary and coiled the line as
they baited.
eyes" said the sociable old fisher
man, "this is pretty sure way of fish
ing. You see, we cover a mile of
ground at a time, and every fish that's
swimming down that terriotry is pretty
sure to strike one of the 600 hooks.
They hook themselves, you see. They
swallow the bait, then run off with it,
or try to, and the weight of the line
brings them up with round turn.
Now we mostly take rock cod, but fish
change as the season does.
1--WE set the trawl at o'clock in the
morning. The line is coiled in the stern
of the boat, and when we get in the
right spot, clear of the kelp the anchor
is lowered, taking the end of the line
down with it. When we strike bottom,
we toss over the buoy and row away,
paying out slowly till the end comes,
when the other anchor is tossed over
and buoy. Then we have the line
stretched over mile of bottom, with
bait every two or three feet. Mighty
few fish pass it. This we let stay sew
eral hours, and then we haul in, general
ly from both ends. Luck varies. I've
taken in that line when we almost filled
the boat. Every hook would have
something.
"Then again luck changes. One day
we pulled out to the line, but not can
was in sight. There wasn't any mis-
take, as we had our bearings exact, so
tho only thing to do was to conclude
that something had happened. We
pulled up and down the coast, then out
to sea, and just as we were about Civ
ing it up we saw one Of the cans bob up
and then disappear.
eve managed to hook it up, and
when we began to take it in 1 thought
we had whale, but the first fish that
hove i'll sight was shark about six feet
long. Then came q stretch of 20 hooks
gone, then shark, then sharks by the
dozen-in fact, there must have been 20
or 30 sharks on the line, not to speak
of those that had been on. We cut them
loose the best we could and figured up
our losses in ishhoOks line and bait at
about $50 You see, school of half
starved shovel nosed sharks had drop
ped i'll just in time and had taken the
fish that had been hooked and so got
hooked in turn.
Another time we lost the line fer
day, and finally found it foul of a kelp
bed, and when we got it up it was next
to impossible to take it i'll. l thought
we had whale that time, but it was
Jewish. There were seven or eight
hooked, and their combined weight
wasn't less than a ton. Some we took,
and the rest we cut loose. There ism
much call for boneless cod just now"
said the old man, with a mysterious
wink.
'Once or twice." he continued, 81
have lost the whole outfit. Once a big
basking shark wound it up so that we
never could clear it, and another time
whale walked off with the whole thing
Sharks are the worst When fish gets
hooked, they come along and bite it off,
leaving the head. Then another shark
comes along and takes the head and the
hook. We get curious things. Some
times cells get hooked, then sting rays
Once q big octopus got ON, and when it
climbed into the boat we got ready to
go overheard, but a knock on the head
with an oar settled him. Sam Francis
co Chronicle.