The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-08-31

~ INC Iour hiiiiioh Heh VIM Ae
~ sponded to the call Of their couG-
try, doubtless the spirit of adventure ap'
pealed to many. The spirit of adventure
is possessed from the cradle to the grave,
but it is only those who respond who learn
of its joys and are ready when opportu-
nity beckons to heed the call to go forth to
the thrills that the unexpected gives.
Doubtless hundreds of thousands COM
ing back from the great war, havlng had
a taste of adventure, will be eager and
willing to try fields anew when the call
comes, for now having once gone forth if
is in the blood to seek new pleasures the
moment that the way is shown.
Zane Grey in his book Tales Of Fishes
points the way to thrills that come to the
man who is willing to take chance where
the rod points even if there is spice OF
danger attached to it. The way lies in
angling for big game fishes of the sea With
sportsmanlike tackle,
The years are but few since DR.. Charles
Frederick Holder called attention to the
possibilities of sport with big game fishes
of the sea and introduced to anglers par
adse in Santa Catalina, Cal, the home of
the broadbill and marlin swordfsh, the
tuna. the albieore and the yellow tail.
It is sad to think that in those briet
wears since the founding of the Tuna Club
in 1898 commercial greed and over
fishing have so reduced the big game fishes
of the Pacific at this anglers paradise
that sportsman Zane Grey should have to
write:
"If YOU are a fisherman Of any degree
and if you aspire to some wonderful ex-
periences with the great and vanishing
game fish of the Pacific, and if you would
love TO associate with these adventures
some dazzling white hot days, and un-
forgetable cool nights where your eyelids
get glued with sleep, and the fragrant salt
breath of the sea, its music and motion
and color and mystery and beauty-thea
go TO Avalon before it is too late"
II.
The charm of Tales Of Fishes is that 1t
lives up to its title They ale tales that
are told with all the ability, color an:
dramatic possibilities of a story teller
who knows and loves his subject. Robert
II. Davis knows. He once wrote to Grey:
"If YOU went out with mosquito net to
catch a mess Of minnows your story would
read like Roman gladiators seining the
Tigris for whales"
Yet Davis is not true believer, al
though he is good fisherman. He writes
to Grey: ''You say the hard, diving fight
of tuna liberates the brute instinct in
man. Well, Zane, it also liberates the
qualities of HARP
Having talked with men like the late
W. G.. Boschen, who caught In 1917 the
largest broadbill swordfsh ever taken on
sportsmanlike tackle, fish weighing 463
pounds, who to accomplish this feat IVES
willing to wait two years for bite, and
VINO once lOSL SHOruHSH dlter he ia
fought it eleven and half hours, we raise
our right hand and s'S Zane Grey is
truthful man. And the evidence can best
be had by going out and seeking these
game fish that whcl subdued with sports
manlikc tackle adj to the glories of mar.
Seeking these gladiators Of the sea is
no child's play. 1t requires love of tie
outdoors, ability as an angler, strengt;
to endure the gruelling work of lifting or
pumping fish to the surface, knowledge
Of the habits of fishes and to pit ones IL
genuity against that of a creature that de-
votes its every effort to escape that which
interferes with its liberty. Grey observes:
"There lives no fisherman but what thece
lives tuna that can take the conceit and
the fight out Of him."