394 Bass, Pike, and Perch 



A just idea of the fishing resources of Florida 

 twenty years ago — and it is much the same to- 

 day — may, perhaps, be gathered from the follow- 

 ing excerpts from my " Camping and Cruising in 

 Florida": — 



" At flood-tide the channels under the man- 

 groves teem with redfish, groupers, and snap- 

 pers, while near the beds of coon oysters are 

 schools of sheepshead and drum. In fact, all 

 of the passes and inlets of the Gulf coast are 

 fairly alive with fishes, from the mullet to sharks 

 and sawfish. While lying in his bunk, one can 

 hear all night long the voices of the deep, under 

 and around him. 



" The hollow, muffled boom of the drumfish 

 seems to be just under one's pillow; schools of 

 sparoid fishes feeding on shell-fish at the bottom, 

 sounds like the snapping of dry twigs on a hot 

 fire ; while a hundred tiny hammers in the hands 

 of ocean sprites are tapping on the keel. Then 

 is heard the powerful rush of the tarpon, the 

 blowing of porpoises, and the snapping jaws of 

 the sea-trout among the swarms of mullet, which, 

 leaping from the surface by thousands, awake the 

 watery echoes like showers of silvery fishes fall- 

 ing in fitful gusts and squalls. 



