to attract their attention. We
aimed to head them off and reach the school first. As we were the
closest all augured well for our success. But gloom invested whatever
hopes I had.

We beat the other boat. We had just gotten our boat opposite the school
of tuna when Dan yelled: "Look out for that bunch of kelp! Jump your
bait over it!"

Then I spied the mass of floating seaweed. I knew absolutely that my
hook was going to snag it. But I tried to be careful, quick, accurate. I
jumped my bait. It fell short. The hook caught fast in the kelp. In the
last piece! The kite fluttered like a bird with broken wings and
dropped. Captain Dan reversed the boat. Then he burst out. Now Dan was a
big man and he had a stentorian voice, deep like booming thunder. No man
ever swore as Dan swore then. It was terrible. It was justified. But it
was funny, and despite all this agony of disappointment, despite the
other boat heading into the tuna and putting them down, I laughed till I
cried.

The fishermen in that other boat hooked a fish and broke it off. We saw
from the excitement on board that they had realized the enormous size of
these tuna. We hurried to get ready again. It was only needful to drag a
bait anywhere near that school. And we alternated with the other boat. I
saw those fishermen get four more strikes and lose the four fish
immediately. I had even worse luck. In fact, disaster grew and grew. But
there is no need for me to multiply these instances. The last three
tunas I hooked broke the double line on the first run. This when I had
on only a slight drag!

The other boat puddled around in our school and finally put it down for
good, and, as the other schools had disappeared, we started for home.

This was the most remarkable and unfortunate day I ever had on the sea,
where many strange fishing experiences have been mine. Captain Dan had
never heard of the like in eighteen years as boatman. No such
large-sized tuna, not to mention numbers, had visited Catalina for many
years. I had thirteen strikes, not counting more than one strike to a
bait. Seven fish broke the single line and three the double line,
practically, I might say, before they had run far enough to cause any
great strain. And the parting of the double line, where, if a break had
occurred, it would have come on the single, convinced us that all these
lines were cut. Cut by other tuna! In this huge school of hungry fish,
whenever one ran for or with a bait, a