PisJi Notes ami Queries. 



357 



a one hundred pound tarpon. He describes tliis 

 experience on page 352, but his thankfuhiess and 

 joy over the days he spent on the gulf are 

 evident in this enthusiastic letter. Of sucli 

 are the kingdom of anglers ! 



" I arrived home safe from my trip to Texas, 

 and have been thinking over my experience ever 

 since. It seems that I have been favored on 

 this trip far above anything we poor mortals 

 should expect. The more I think of it, the 

 more thankful I am that my lines fell in such 

 pleasant places. Being on business, not expect- 

 ing to fish, I was, as you know, wholly unpre- 

 pared for the exciting and exhilerating time I 

 had, and am thankful that you appeared at San 

 Antonio so opportunely. I have caught many 

 fresh water fish, but was totally inexperienced 

 in the ways of the inhabitants of salt water, so 

 the chance to realize a dream of tarpon fishing 

 was one not to be slighted. I had heard of 

 Florida fishing, its excitement and delays ; how 

 you might wait a day, or perhaps two weeks, 

 before a tarpon would take your bait, and I had 

 hoped that some day I should make a fight with 

 one, but Aransas Pass has satisfied every wish 

 and given me an experience I shall never forget. 



From the time I stopped at Aransas Harbor, 

 my experience was novel and full of pleasure. 

 Our sail to the Pass with Mr. Panton and the 

 other gentlemen ; our arrival at the Pass, where 

 we saw the two magnificent tarpon in the air as 

 we sailed across ; my handsome suit of fishing 

 clothes, furnished by you, and topped out by 

 myself with a twenty-five cent shirt ; my first 

 cast in salt water, with its attendant result ; the 

 jackfish and kingfish ; your waiting on the beach 

 to see me fight and land my first tarpon ; my 

 first surf fishing and the redfish I there took, all 

 come back vividly to me, causing me to wonder 

 how it is that I should be so fortunate as to run 

 up against such sport. 



But, Brother Harris, you saw all of that. You 

 know how, when and where it was done. You 

 also know the amount of pleasure I got out of 

 it all. 



Aransas Pass, Texas ! Three days of 

 unalloyed pleasure ! Six tarpon in two and one- 

 half days ; a twenty-three pound jackfish ; 

 eighteen pound kingfish ; ten pound redfish and 

 a shark six feet long. How much more should 

 a man desire to compress in three days ? 



No waiting here for tarpon, but fishing for 

 them as you would for bass in a Northern lake. 

 All you touch are not hooked, but I raised 

 eighteen, and out of them hooked and landed 



six, which I am told is a good average. All in 

 two and one-half days -not full days, either. 



I know nothing of sea fishing elsewhere, but I 

 know 1 had royal sport while with you. My 

 night sail to Rockport, on the trading schooner, 

 fitly rounded out my new experience. 



Would I prefer tarpon fishing to trout fishing? 

 I have followed a big trout in the Nepigon down 

 rapids, where the Indians said : "I never think 

 a man would follow a fish down a place like 

 that." I followed that tarpon through the 

 breakers. Both were exciting, both exhilerat- 

 ing. I prefer both. They are totally unlike, 

 both are perfect. I shall probably buy a tarpon 

 outfit, but I shall always keep my trout rods 

 and flies. With me, there is one drawback to 

 tarpon fishing, only one, you cannot use them. 

 I dislike to kill anything I cannot use or have 



used by someone. 



John A. Sea. 



Mississippi Fishes a Century Ago. 



In 179S, Willi:im Dunbar, of Natchez, Miss., 

 was appointed by the Spanish government as 

 astronomer to the boundary commission who 

 defined the line (along the 31st degree of Lati- 

 tude, North ) separating the Spanish possessions 

 from those of the United States. The original 

 report of Mr. Dunbar with notes on the climate 

 and natural history of the section surveyed, is 

 now in the possession of his descendant, Mr. 

 W. Dunbar Jenkins, the chief engineer of the 

 Aransas Pass Harbor Company, of Tarpon, 

 Texas, who has kindly permitted me to copy the 

 notes made by Mr. Dunbar on the fishes and 

 turtles of the lower Mississippi nearly a century 

 ago. 



«(**** One species of turtle covered 

 by a comparatively soft shell is often taken by 

 the hook and line and is thought to be little 

 inferior in goodness to the green turtle of the 

 West Indies. Some other kinds are also 

 eaten, and others, again, are rejected, perhaps 

 from prejudice on account of their disagreeable 

 aspect. One of them is called the alligator 

 turtle, on account of his overgrown head and 

 tail being covered with a species of scales 

 resembling those that form the armor of the 

 crocodile. I have seen of this turtle some 

 whose shells were three feet in length, and I 

 suppose might have weighed a hundred 

 pounds. 



"Proposing only to take a cursory view of 

 those objects which passed under my notice, I 

 do not pretend to give a complete enumeration 



