Naples on the Gulf. 



59 



The cream of the fishing at Naples is 

 from the long pier which extends nine 

 hundred feet into the Gulf. At times 

 the water around the spiles of the pier 

 is swarming with fish. Spanish mac- 

 kerel, cavalle, red fish, blue fish, sheeps- 

 head, kingfish, snook, lady fish, big jew 

 fish, 14 ft. sawfish and sharks of several 

 species, are taken daily, with an occa- 

 sional chance to harpoon a big manta or 

 devil fish. The pier is the point of at- 

 traction for most of the hotel guests, 

 and in the evening presents an animated 

 scene of social gayety and good fellow- 

 ship. Everybody feels at home there. 



It was at Naples that I first ate that 

 renowned table fish, the pompano, fresh 

 from the water. Before this experience 

 I had placed the cisco of Lake Geneva, 

 Wis., as the choicest and finest flavored 

 of all edible fish. I had now found its 

 mate, and strange to state, to my palate 

 the one was almost identical in flavor 



to the other. Both have, for lack of a 

 more significant term, a well decided 

 oyster flavor, and this fact is the more 

 singular, when we consider that the 

 Cisco is a fresh water lake fish and the 

 pompano, so far as known, is never 

 found away from salt water, not as- 

 cending, as many other sea fish do, the 

 brackish waters of the creeks along the 

 sea coast. No doubt the food eaten by 

 both will explain this coincidence of fla- 

 vor. The Cisco of Lake Geneva lives for at 

 least ten months in the year in the deep- 

 est water of the lake, at the bottom of 

 which the crayfish abounds ; the pom- 

 pano, as is well known, feeds exclusively 

 upon the small Crustacea of the ocean 

 beaches. But be this as it may, he who 

 has never tasted either of these fish, is 

 as barren of delightful experience as 

 the one who has never plucked his hook 

 into their tender mouths or captured 

 them on a yeilding rod. 







THE 900 FOOT PIER AT "NAPLES ON THE GULF." 



