Ralph Bandini - Veiled Horizons: Stories of Big Game Fish of the Sea

I T is strange, as line spins off the reel of life, how various incidents and scenes that one has experienced over the years seem to weave and shuttle in a sort of kaleidoscope until, scarcely before one realizes that it has happened, they fall into their appointed places to form the crazy-quilt pattern which comprises the story of ones life. And it is strange, too, how the seemingly great things become small and the small things great. Rudyard Kipling knew what he was talking about when he wrote, And that is why the big things pass, and the little things remain.

A good many years ago, on a sunny September morning, I came into Avalon Bay from San Clemente with the blue and white swordfish flag flying at the masthead. Upon the stern was lashed a 244-pound marlin, my first button fish. Since then I have gone through many experiences of vastly greater importance than that of bringing in a dead fish. Nevertheless the fact remains that, despite what I have done or shouldnt have done, accomplished or failed to accomplish, during the interim of those years, that morning remains startlingly clear in the album of memories. There was the official weighing-in the congratulations of my fellow Club membersthe putting into my lapel buttonhole of the coveted Tuna Club gold swordfish button by Tom Manning, then secretaryand the subsequent gathering of congenial souls in the Bait Box.

Of course there is a reason why that particular memory should remain so fresh after all those years between. Since my childhood we had always gone to Catalina Island for the summer. Before there was a Tuna Club, even before any man had been daring enough to attempt the taking of those great fish on rod and reel, I had watched the Italian fishermen, pulling homeward from their nights work, standing up at the oars, swinging rhythmically back and forth to the tempo of their native boat songs. Mornings without number my mother and I had gone out upon the bay in a skiff, had even ventured the three miles down to Seal Rocks, to catch yellowtail and bass on handlines. I shall never forget my first yellowtail taken on rod and reelabout a $3 outfit. I hooked him off Pebbly Beach Pointand it took me an hour and a half to land him! From those very earliest days, fishing has been to me the sport of sports. Ive played golf and tennis, hunted, ridden and sailedbut always fishing has remained tops.

Later, as a lad, I often stood round-eyed and envying as those sturdy old pioneers of the game came in with their impossible catches taken on still more impossible tackle. When I think of them, and what they did, it seems to me that we so-called anglers of the present day, with our big, sturdy reels, our friction drags, our crank stops, our heavy lines and almost unbreakable rods, should hang our heads in shame! How they did it, God only knows! Three-piece jointed rods of wood, crude reels, flying crank handles, leather thumbstalls their only drag, lines that broke at less than forty pounds. What a breed of men they wereHolder, Morehouse, Dickerson, Ryder, Barrett, Stearns, Schenck, MacMillan, Manning, Potter, Reed, Earlscliffe, Murphy, Hooper, Boschen, Conn and all the rest! Those men made big game fishing, and it is due to them that you, today, have the sport, and have the equipment that their pioneering, their bruised and broken hands and fingers, brought into being. Try their way some time. Go out with a forty-pound line, a three-piece rod, a free-handle reel, and tie into a hundred-pound tuna! May God grant that, when our numbers go up, and the time comes for us to join them on the Happy Fishing Banks, we may have the decency to tread softly, carrying our hats in our hands, and listen respectfully when they are moved to speak of their deeds.

But to get back. As a lad I watched the Tuna Club come into being. Diffidently I hovered as close to the groups of those great anglers as the proprieties permitted, listening as they spun their yarns of days out upon the blue sea, of hours of desperate struggle with the hard-fighting battlers from out the deep. I even suffered with them as they nursed their wounds upon the verandah of the old Hotel Metropole. God knows Ive suffered since!

With the famous old boatmen, Jim Gardner, Tad Gray, Mexican Joe, Monty Foster, Chappie, Joe Adargo, Percy Neale, George Johnson, Harry Elms and the rest, there was a little greater intimacy. They were not above permitting an admiring boy to help pull their skiffs up on the beach, to carry to their stands oars and gear, to let him listen as they told their stories of fish and fishermen.

As I grew older, membership in the Tuna Club seemed to me to be the ultimate of all possible ambition. There every worth-while quality was to be foundsportsmanship, courage, romance, adventure, good fellowship. Since then there have been times when those early beliefs have been sadly shakenbut the roots remain.

After a time the way opened whereby I could become an Associate Membera sort of betwixt-and-between estate hovering upon the outskirts of the circle of the electtruly a dry crust to a starving man. What I wanted above all things was Active Membership and the right to wear the Tuna Club buttonand to that end I went to work enthusiastically and expensively.

From the very beginning everything seemed to go wrong. I missed finding fish. When I did find them, I missed getting into the schools. When I did get into them, I missed strikes. When I did get hooked on, I pulled the hook out or broke the line. Reels froze on me. When I went over to Catalina the fish disappeared. As soon as I left, they came back. And, when none of these things happened, and I did actually land a fish, he was inevitably below the qualifying weight. I began to think I was the mos unluck man that ever lived!

But the old proverb holds true. Its a long lane that has no turn. In due time the one I was following came to a turnalthough I had to go all the way over to San Clemente to find it. And so, that September morning, I came into Avalon with my first button fish.

Thereafter came more years of fishing. Various other buttons and prizes were kind enough to tumble into my lap, or climb up into my lapel buttonhole. I had a lot of fun. I didnt catch so very many fish or any very large ones. I was soundly beaten by a lot more than I caught. But that is as it should be. A good licking once in a while is good for the peace of ones soul. It jerks one back to where one realizes ones proper place in the scheme of things. Various experiences, some of them strange, came my way. I called at out-of-the-way nooks and corners. I ran across a lot of good fellowsand some who were not so good. I gained a wholesome respect for those gentlemen adventurers of the seven seastuna, marlin swordfish and broadbill swordfish. Fishing was my greatest joy and I expected to keep on with it as long as I was able to sit in a chair and hold a rod.

Then came the year 1932. Marlin showed up in August. There werent many, but what there were, were big. Three-hundred-pounders were the rulenot the exception.

Now I had never taken a three-hundred-pound marlin and, of course, was anxious to get into the charmed circle. Accordingly I slipped over to Avalon for a day or two of fishing. Things werent going so well for any of us in that yearas doubtless you remember. For me they were going very badly. One, perhaps two, days fishing was the most I could afford. But at Avalon I got a break. Andy Martin, then president of the Tuna Club, invited me to go out with him, as his guest, for three or four days.