Evening star., 1942-10-01

the birds and the various tropical
fishes. The boat, being orange
yellow in color, was a great attrac-
ton to the fish. and they all came
up and looked it over as if it were
some strange animal.
Evidently the birds had the same
idea. AL day they coasted slowly
over our heads, always approach
ing upwind, and peering curiously
down at this oddappearing float
ing object that had invaded their
exclusive world Of wind and water.
There was one kind, snow
white little fellow, which seemed
to ignore us completely. There
were always two or three of these in
company. First one would let out
sort Of croaking chirp, then an
other would answer. They had
short, rounded, bullet-shaped bodies
which appeared to be about the
size Of that of bobwhite quail.
They had three tail feathers about
two feet long, which hung out be-
hind them like streamers, giving a
very graceful effect to their flight.
They would climb up to two or
three hundred feet. altitude and
look around for their prey on the
water. When they sighted it they
would make vertical dive, shoot
ing straight down and making a
headlong plunge, into the water,
looking for all the world like a dive
bomber launching bomb at the
enemy. l sometimes wondered why
the little fellows didn't pop wide
open when they hit the water, but
it didn't seem to faze them.
Watching these birds, the alba
trosses and terms of all kinds, ban
quoting literally all day long from
this unfriendly sea that was so
barren for US, whetted our appe-
tites and made us angry with our
selves that we were helpless to OBJ
tain food where less reasoning crea-
lures plundered and gorged.
Aldrich showed at once that he
was interested in fishing, SO we
looked around for something to use
for line. In the tool pocket there
was three strand cotton cord per-
haps Is feet long. This I unraveled
into three thinner pieces of line,
and cut them off to about 10 feet
Tony had red .bandanna hand
kerchief, so Gene tied piece of
this TO the end of the string for
bait, as we had heard that tropical
fish would bite at anything of bright
color.
Fishermen's Luck.
Gene stood over the side and flung
his line into the water. 1t was over
for only couple of minutes when
he discovered that the bait was
gone-bitten clean off. We then
rigged a piece of wire as a leader,
put on another piece of rag, and
attached piece OF the broken pliers
|. to weight it down.
I broke the pliers trying to make
fishnook from a spring in the am
munition clip. AS I took hold OF
the wire and clamped down, the bolt
that holds the two sections of pliers
together gave way, having crystal
lized. However, the piece of broken
plier made good sinker. With
this rig Gene fished for hours, but
never had another bite. He tried
all kinds of schemes, discoursing
the while on his experiences fishing
back home, near the Mississippi
River.
Tony, not to be outdone as a con-
versationalist, chimed in, whenever
the subject was remotely appropri-
ate, with "reminiscences of the work
| he had done at home helping his
father as a landscape gardener
This particular theme was always
welcomed by me on its frequent
occurrences, for could ring in soma
thing about my avocado ranch
(Calavo, IA acres), at La Mesa
near San Diego. That was about
the nearest we came to having COM
mon conversational interests, except
when we talked about coffee.
The three of us were almost con-
slant coffee drinkers, like practically
all memo 'Warslnen. While we
missed our cigarettes at first, we
were now missing our coffee badly
and as time went on we were tC