Tales of the Fish Patrol

Tales of the Fish Patrol

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales of the Fish Patrol, by Jack
London (#8 in our series by Jack London)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Tales of the Fish Patrol
Author: Jack London
Release Date: May, 1997 [EBook #911] [This file was first posted on
March 22, 1997] [Most recently updated: May 12, 2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TALES OF
THE FISH PATROL ***

Transcribed from the 1914 edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

Tales of the Fish Patrol

WHITE AND YELLOW

San Francisco Bay is so large that often its storms are more disastrous
to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its violent moments. The
waters of the bay contain all manner of fish, wherefore its surface is
ploughed by the keels of all manner of fishing boats manned by all
manner of fishermen. To protect the fish from this motley floating
population many wise laws have been passed, and there is a fish patrol
to see that these laws are enforced. Exciting times are the lot of the fish
patrol: in its history more than one dead patrolman has marked defeat,
and more often dead fishermen across their illegal nets have marked
success.
Wildest among the fisher-folk may be accounted the Chinese shrimp-
catchers. It is the habit of the shrimp to crawl along the bottom in vast
armies till it reaches fresh water, when it turns about and crawls back
again to the salt. And where the tide ebbs and flows, the Chinese sink
great bag-nets to the bottom, with gaping mouths, into which the
shrimp crawls and from which it is transferred to the boiling-pot. This

in itself would not be bad, were it not for the small mesh of the nets, so
small that the tiniest fishes, little new-hatched things not a quarter of an
inch long, cannot pass through. The beautiful beaches of Points Pedro
and Pablo, where are the shrimp-catchers' villages, are made fearful by
the stench from myriads of decaying fish, and against this wasteful
destruction it has ever been the duty of the fish patrol to act.
When I was a youngster of sixteen, a good sloop-sailor and all- round
bay-waterman, my sloop, the Reindeer, was chartered by the Fish
Commission, and I became for the time being a deputy patrolman.
After a deal of work among the Greek fishermen of the Upper Bay and
rivers, where knives flashed at the beginning of trouble and men
permitted themselves to be made prisoners only after a revolver was
thrust in their faces, we hailed with delight an expedition to the Lower
Bay against the Chinese shrimp-catchers.
There were six of us, in two boats, and to avoid suspicion we ran down
after dark and dropped anchor under a projecting bluff of land known
as Point Pinole. As the east paled with the first light of dawn we got
under way again, and hauled close on the land breeze as we slanted
across the bay toward Point Pedro. The morning mists curled and clung
to the water so that we could see nothing, but we busied ourselves
driving the chill from our bodies with hot coffee. Also we had to devote
ourselves to the miserable task of bailing, for in some
incomprehensible way the Reindeer had sprung a generous leak. Half
the night had been spent in overhauling the ballast and exploring the
seams, but the labor had been without avail. The water still poured in,
and perforce we doubled up in the cockpit and tossed it out again.
After coffee, three of the men withdrew to the other boat, a Columbia
River salmon boat, leaving three of us in the Reindeer. Then the two
craft proceeded in company till the sun showed over the eastern
sky-line. Its fiery rays dispelled the clinging vapors, and there, before
our eyes, like a picture, lay