FLOUNDER-FISHING BY DAY.Flounder-fishing in the daytime is good sport. Find out the nearest camp of Indians there on the beach, crowded under a shelter of sea-worn planks, a few fir-boughs, and a tattered blanket; the smell of tainted fish pollutes the air, and a heap of flounders, each with the triangular spear-mark, attests the skill of last night's fishermen. "Any fish, muck-a-muck?" say you, blandly. Without turning her head, or raising herself from her crouching posture by the old black kettle, stewing on a tiny fire of sticks in the center of the hut, the old crone grunts out, "Halo" (none). "Want two bit?" you say, nowise discouraged. Money has magic power nowadays, and she rises slowly and shuffles past you to where a rag or two are drying in the sun on a stranded log. From under the clothes she brings out a dirty basket of home make, and in it is a heap of greenish, struggling prawns. She turns out two or three handfuls into the meat-tin you have providently brought, holds out her skinny hand for the little silver pieces, and buries herself in her shanty without another word.
Fit out your fishing-lines and come aboard; the tide has turned, and the wind blows freshly across the bay. The surf keeps up its continuous roar on the rocky reefs outside. On the sand-bank in front of you sits a row of white and gray gulls preening themselves in the morning sun; a couple of ospreys are sailing overhead in long, graceful, hardly-moving sweeps, and away out by the north head hangs an eagle in the air, watching the ospreys, that he may cheat them of the fish he looks to see them catch.
Set the sail and let her go free, and away rushes the little boat, tired of bobbing at her moorings by the pier—away across the bay, to where the south beach sinks in gentle, sandy slope. Take care of that waving weed, or we shall be on the edge of the bank! Here we are, and down goes the kedge in six feet of water, close to but just clear of that same edge.
Now for the bait; tie it on tightly with that white cotton, or the flounders will suck it off so fast that you will have nothing else to do but keep replacing it. Keep your sinkers just off the bottom, and a light hand on the line. A gentle wriggle, a twitch, and you have him; haul him in steadily. Up he comes, a four-pounder, tossing and flopping in the bottom of the boat. Here comes a great crab, holding on to the bait grimly, and suffering you to catch him by one of his lower legs and toss him in. Now for a sea-perch; what a splendid color!—bands of bright scarlet scales, interlaced with silver. But what is this? A stream of water flows from the fish's mouth, and in it come out five or six little ones, the image of their parent. I wonder if it is true (and I think it is) that the little ones take refuge inside their parent in any time of need? The fishermen on this coast call this the "squaw-fish," from this sheltering, maternal instinct.
But we have been here long enough; the water is too deep, the fish have gone off the feed, and we shall have to beat back, lucky if we do in two hours the distance we ran in half an hour on our way.
The tide has run nearly out this evening: a good chance for some rock-oysters. Get your axe and come along. Where? Along the coast toward Foulweather; we shall find those long reefs almost bare. We climb over the big reef on the north head of the harbor, under the lighthouse hill, and wind in and out on the hard sand among the rough rocks, all crusted over their sides with tiny barnacles. There is little kelp or seaweed here. The surf beats too powerfully in this recess, away from the shelter of the great outer reef.
See that group of Indian women and children away out there, barelegged, digging with their axes in the rock. They are after the rock-oysters too.
Now is our chance. Jump on to that rock before the next wave comes in, and climb on to the reef beyond it and get out to low-water mark. Here we are. Do you see that crevice? Chip in and wrench the piece off; the rock is soft enough sandstone to cut with that blunt old axe. Here is the spoil—soft mollusks, are they not, and not pretty to look at? But wait for the soup at dinner to-morrow before you pronounce on them. And we dig, and then venture farther out and farther, till the turn of the water warns us to get back.
The evening is closing in; the sun has set, leaving a hot, red glow, where his copper disk has just sunk beyond the Pacific horizon; and the eye wanders out from the infant waves, at foot just tinged with red, and reflecting the light as they move up in turn to catch it, to the blue and still darker blue water beyond, out to the sharp indigo line where sky and water meet.
No land between us and the Eastern world; the mind can hardly grasp the idea of the vast stretch of sea across which this new world reaches forth to join hands with old China and Japan.