84 The American Angler 
or front teeth in its upper jaw, while 
the fish is amply provided. The seven 
dark bands running from dorsal fin 
across sides to belly is the best and 
most characteristic marking of the 
species, and one by which it can always 
be told both in the young and oid. 
Those of your fortunate readers who 
visit Florida this winter will be intro- 
duced to a rare and interesting variety 
of fish—the red grouper. It is reckoned 
next in importance to the sea bass as a 
commercial fish, and specimens are 
sometimes caught which attain a weight 
of forty to fifty pounds. This is a 
heavy fish to hang to a line, especially 
if there is life in him. Dead weight is 
weighty enough when your tackle is 
light. But Florida tackle should not 
be light, as arule, but quite the reverse. 
Mr. Sam C. Clark, whose experience is 
worth regarding, says: 
‘‘Fish of most kinds being most 
abundant near the shore where the bot- 
tom is covered with snags and roots of 
the mangrove, the hooks often get fast 
and are lost. In many places the bot- 
tom is paved with oyster shells, which 
cut off a fineline. Therefore silkworm 
gut is not suited for this fishing, nor is 
it necessary for these bold biting fish. 
Sharks cut off many lines, and rays 
break them, so that a line of one hun- 
dred yards long is generally used up in 
one season. 5 
We lose five or six hooks daily, on an 
average, and some sinkers. For red 
bass, salt water trout, groupers, snap- 
pers, and cavalli, I use New York bass 
hooks, Nos. 1 and 2. 
A Cuttyhunk linen line, fifteen thread, 
three hundred feet long, will hold and 
kill most of the fish encountered on this 
coast. Of course a five hundred 
pound jewfish, a tarpon six feet long, 
or aray six feet across, will get away 
with the tackle. Reel, a multiplyer, 
of brass or German silver, to hold one 
hundred yards, provided with a drag to 
increase resistance. Thumb stalls of 
heavy knitted yarn are necessary, to 
save cut and bruised fingers in a fight 
with a runaway fish. 
A bamboo rod eight and a half to 
nine feet long, in three, or better in two 
pieces, will stand the hard work of 
three or four winters in Florida; it is 
light and handy, costs only four or five 
dollars, and will last as long and kill as 
many and as big fish, as a rod costing 
twenty-five dollars. Other necessary 
tools are a landing net for sheepshead 
and small bass, and a layge gaff hook 
with a handle four or five feet long. 
A pocket revolver, for shooting sharks 
and big rays, [have seen used in a boat. 
As most of the fishing is done from 
a boat in shallow water, a light flat- 
bottomed skiff ten or twelve feet long, 
and from two and one-half to three feet 
wide is most convenient. 
For rod fishing, one angler is enough 
in a boat, the stern being the only com- 
fortable place to fish from. Of hand- 
line fishermen, three or four could be 
accommodated inthe samespace. The 
most essential thing of allis to have a 
boatman who is handy with a casting 
net, for on this depends your supply of 
mullet bait. Your boat should be 
anchored at bow and stern, so as to 
hold her in position against wind and 
tide; a few feet one way or the other 
often makes great difference in the 
catch. 
The grouper is taken on the bottom 
in deep channels and holes, near the 
roots of the mangrove trees, under 
which it makes its stronghold. It is 
never found far from this fortress, to 
which it retreats when alarmed,or when 
hooked. The usual baitis mullet, either 
