44 THE TARPON 



mainland. The material forming the roadbed was borrowed 

 from the adjacent right-of-way and holes were excavated. 

 These filled with water which seeped in from Charlotte Har- 

 bor, a hundred feet or so away. In 1932 I learned that a boy 

 had caught a tarpon in one of these ponds and my guide and 

 I visited the place. It was about six hundred feet long, thirty 

 feet wide and five to six feet deep in places. The water was 

 slightly brackish but the hard rains had so diluted it that it 

 was almost fresh to the taste. The bottom was mud into which 

 we sank to our knees. There were a few small alligators in the 

 pool and many obstructions which made seining a difiicult task. 

 It was full of small tarpon and we netted about fifteen, rang- 

 ing in size from eleven to nineteen inches in length. We re- 

 leased all but four. The fish persisted in jumping over the net 

 which added to our difficulties for we were up to our necks in 

 the water and nearly stuck in the mud. 



They were bright colored and in good condition. I dissected 

 one and found it had been feeding on very small minnows and 

 shrimps. It was interesting to find such fine fish in so scummy 

 a mud hole, which at the time had no connection with either 

 the waters of the Gulf or Charlotte Harbor. 



A heavy storm would doubtless flood the pond but I could 

 not learn when this had last occurred. Later that year about 

 twelve of these fish were seined out and placed in an artificial 

 pool on the grounds of the Boca Grande Hotel. Some of them 

 prospered until this year (1936) when the pond was dredged 

 and lengthened. 



In December, 1935, this part of Florida experienced freezing 

 temperature and the mercury went to about 28°. After the 

 frost, Mr. William H. Crosby, of Buffalo, and George Wilhelm, 

 his guide, visited the railroad pond and the latter counted over 

 one hundred dead tarpon, which no doubt were killed by the 

 change in the temperature of the water. Many fish are killed 

 by the sudden drop of only 15° in the water they inhabit. 



