FISHING TACKLE AND COMA4ENTS 



and black marlin, and I am sure that when occasionally these 

 men boat a fish quickly they justly merit such good fortune. 

 It compensates for innumerable tough breaks. Practically 

 nobody realizes that many days are spent by big game anglers 

 riding the ocean without a strike. 



It always makes me laugh to hear people say that we delib- 

 erately try to hook fish deep in order to make sure of catch- 

 ing them in fast time. How perfectly absurd! If there were 

 any established system or if anyone knew of any way of 

 doing this, there would be very few fish left in the ocean, and 

 every fishing guide in the business could retire with a fat 

 fortune. I have seen a twelve-hundred-foot dropback given 

 to a broadbill and a black marlin and a five-hundred-foot 

 dropback to a blue marlin, and on each occasion the hook 

 was in the corner of the jaw. Yet, on other occasions, I have 

 seen a fifteen-foot dropback given a broadbill and forty-feet 

 to a marlin with the hook set in the heart or stomach. I would 

 be wiUing to wager a lot of money that if you deliberately 

 set out to hook ten fish in the stomach, seven of them would 

 be hooked in the jaw or mouth, or if you set out to hook an 

 equal number in the mouth or jaw, you would find seven had 

 been hooked deep. 



I have also been told that big game anglers attempt to wrap 

 up the fish with a long dropback. This is preposterous. As if 

 anyone in the boat could possibly control the swimming fish 

 or what he does with the bait! 



Believe it or not, I have even been accused of foul-hooking 

 a fish on purpose. Any angler, or any student of the game, 

 knows that that only makes the fight more difficult— and how 

 in heaven's name could anyone do that with a fish in the 



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