Ill SPORT WITH TARPON 29 



there are two or three varieties of them, but the grunting ugly- 

 beggars are a terrible nuisance, very frequently spoiling your 

 baits one after another. You may get a sudden Some 

 rush with a shark, which had better be off than Nuisances. 

 on, or you may be bothered by crabs which fool about the 

 bait most aggravatingly, and manage at last to cut the line, you 

 being all unconscious at the time of what has happened. 



By and by you will see the line running out a few yards 

 and stopping, and that should be your warning that a tarpon 

 has seen and taken your offering of dead mullet. Tarpon at 

 The fish may keep on running in greater or smaller ^^st. 

 spurts, but anyhow your business is to let him gorge the bait 

 thoroughly. The line must not be checked for a moment ; so 

 slight a hindrance as the obstruction of a weed or blade of 

 submarine grass coming in contact with the line has been 

 known to result in the tarpon rejecting the bait. 



By this time you have your rod in hand, ready for events, 

 and ever watchful that the line is free. Take time ; let the 

 tarpon gorge at his ease. In this, as in some other kinds of 

 fishing, there is more danger in being too hasty than in being 

 too slow. At the same time there is a limit to caution, and 

 the warrant for striking is when the fish has taken out from 



