The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-08-30
A MILE-LONG FISH LINE.
One of Its Largest Catches Was a Ton or
More of Jewish.

one or Its Largest Catches Was a Ton or
More of Jewish.
The beach at Laguna is a fine one for
walking and bathing. The rocks are
cut and worn into arches, caves and
huge platforms, with great spout holes
INTO which the water pours, bursting
upward in natural fountains, making
the adjacent rocks culver and shake.
Crawling over rocks that hid count
weeds, | came to little cave where the
fishermen make their headquarters A
great bluff formed the shelter, and as
deep water came inShOre a harbOr was
made for landing the dories A little
shanty on the high sand, dozen boats
pile of crawfish straps, the tails of
several sharks told the story. and as a
centerpiece a grizzly old fellow. the
generalissimo. He was waiting for the
baiters, for the line he used needed not
one man. but a dozen or more, to bait
1t. As we stood there they began to
come in from the hills and over the
beach from out of the hooks and cor
ners. The tackle used was fish line
mile in length. On each end was an
anchor and a buoy in the shape of
soldered-up oil can, and at every three
feet or SO of this line was a hook. six
stundred or more being needed for
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.
Yes 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 territory is pretty
sure to strike one of the six hundred
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. We
set the trawl at 3 o'clock in the morn
ing. The line is coiled in the stern of
the boat, and when we get in the right
spot, clear of the l1elp, 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 a buoy; then we have the line
stretched over a 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 from
both ends. Luck varies; I've taken in
that line when we almost filed the
boat: every hook would have some
thing. Then again. luck changes.
Q"One day we pulled out to the line,
but not a can was in sight. There
wasn't any mistake. as we had our
bearings exact. SO the 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 giving it up we saw one of
the cans bob up and then disappear. We
managed to hook it up, and when we
began to take in | thought we had
whale; but the first fish that hove in
sight was shark about six feet long;
then came stretch of twenty hooks
gone, then a shark. then sharks by the
dozen; in fact, there must have been
twenty or thirty 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 fish-hools,
line and bait at about fifty dollars.
You see, a school of half-starved shovel
nosed sharks dropped in just in time
and had taken the fish that had been
hooked, and so got hooked in turn. An
other time we lost the line for a day,
and finally found it foul of kelp bed,
and when we got it up it was next to
impossible to take it in. | thought we
had whale that time, but it was
Jewish: there were seven or eight
hooked, and their combined weight
wasn't less than ton. Some we took,
and the rest we cut loose. There isn't
much call for homeless cod just now"
said the old man, with a wink
''Once or twice" he continued, II
have lost the whole outfit. Once
big basking shark wound it up so
that we never could clear it. and an
other time whale walked off with the
whole thing. Sharks are the worst;
when a fish gets hooked they come
along and bite it off, leaving the head;
then another shark comes along and
takes the head and hook. We get curl
Gus things. Sometimes cells get hooked,
then sting rays Once big octopus
got on, and when it climbed into the
boat we got ready to go overheard, but
a knock on the head settled him.-San
Francisco Chronicle.