124 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



SO, making myself as comfortable as possible, I picked up 

 a newspaper and commenced reading. Hardly had I read 

 half-way down the first column, when the noise of a large 

 body emerging from the water opposite my boat attracted 

 my attention. It was a Tarpon, weighing somewhere in the 

 neighborhood of one hundred pounds. His rise, which was 

 a straight, upward bolt, carrying his tail three or four feet 

 clear of the water's surface, was the first intimation I had that 

 anything was on my line. A superb spectacle he presented, as 

 he glittered for a moment there in mid-air. With mouth 

 wide open and gills expanded, he angrily shook his head to 

 relieve himself from the hook, and his whole body appeared 

 to be quaking with nervou'? force. Back he drops with a 

 great splash, and up anchor and hurry with the oars is the 

 order of the moment in the boat. Scarcely a moment does 

 he remain below, when out again he comes in almost the 

 same spot. This time his efforts to free himself are success- 

 ful, for he ejects the baited hook with enough force to throw 

 it ten or fifteen feet from him. Disappointed, but knowing it 

 could not have been avoided, fresh bait is cast out, and we re- 

 sume fishing only a few feet away from the locality first taken. 



As a rule the click of the reel will give notice of the Tar- 

 pon's presence. In this instance, the fish must have taken 

 the bait and advanced in the direction of my boat, thus 

 preventing any warning. Some persons coil thirty or forty 

 feet of line on the seat of the boat, after having made their 

 cast, and watch closely for its disappearance. With a good, 

 easy-running reel I consider this unnecessary. 



It is a debatable question whether to "strike" a Tarpon 

 after he has taken the bait. Many Tarpon experts are in the 

 habit of doing so; many others do not. It is generally con- 

 ceded by all that a Tarpon must be well hooked in the gullet 

 before the chances are at all favorable for his capture. For 

 this reason he is allowed to run with the line until it is sup- 

 posed he has had time to swallow well the bait. When he 



