THE TARPON 57 



and athletic form is well adapted for high jumping. Cool ob- 

 servers have estimated the leaps at from twelve to fifteen or 

 even eighteen feet vertically and thirty feet horizontally. I 

 have observed a fish make a horizontal leap of about twenty- 

 two feet. Sometimes it will go into the air ten or twelve times, 

 dependent upon the way the angler plays it or the depth of the 

 water, but so many successive jumps are rare. When a strain 

 is applied it will frequently leap and while in the air shake 

 itself violently to dislodge the hook. It falls back into the 

 water just as it happens, and whether free or line bound it 

 makes no particular effort to make a clean dive. Males are 

 more active than the females as they are usually lighter and 

 more lithe. The tarpon has been known to jump upon a man 

 sitting in a chair on the deck of a steamboat. One knocked a 

 negro guide out of a boat at the mouth of the Brazos River. 

 The man was stunned and drowned. In Galveston Bay a tar- 

 pon leaped and broke a boatman's neck. At Avery's Island, 

 La., a man fishing in a skiff was hit and died from his injuries. 

 ''Net fisherman dread to see him in their nets for they have 

 known of men being injured by their attempts to leap out" 

 (Stearns). Many i^eople have suffered injuries from its won- 

 derful leaps. One must have the experience of welcoming an 

 active and vigorous tarpon into a small boat to obtain a just 

 appreciation of its liveliness and strength. A fair-sized fish 

 will scale six feet in length and if it jumps straight out of the 

 water so that its tail is six feet above it, its snout will be twelve 

 feet in the air. Such a jump will be frequently observed. But 

 to say that a tarpon can leap clear of the water for twelve feet 

 is another matter. A vertical jump of ten or at most twelve 

 feet would seem to be the limit, but it is destructive to one's 

 judgment to see a mass of molten silver suddenly shoot from 

 an azure sea with a great flurry of w^ater and project itself 

 into the air to a towering height close to the boat. One 's esti- 

 mate of such a performance is apt to be distorted and untrust- 

 worthy. 



