PASS FISHING 69 



sembles nothing so much as a boiling cauldron. While you 

 are fishing, the tarpon are on the move all around, and some- 

 times they are so numerous that they might be j^. . 

 taken for a shoal of gigantic mackerel. There laneous 

 is no shyness in these uneducated fish : they come 

 near the boat ; indeed they sometimes jump right over and 

 even into it. The tarpon, which in certain lights show a 

 bright blue edge to the scales, look most charming in the 

 water with their light green backs and silvery sides. Turtle, 

 although very shy, come up and go down in the Pass alongside 

 your boat, and having shown their Venetian brown heads, 

 silently steal away. Some of these I should imagine would 

 weigh at least 400 lbs. 



The beautiful Spanish mackerel {Scomberomorus maculatus) 

 is caught here ; it has shades of gold all along the side, 

 curiously marked, and suggesting that they have Spanish 

 been smudged on with a human finger. One day "Mackerel. 

 I saw a gentleman catch 35 mackerel with his fly-rod and 

 artificial fly. My fly -rod was of course left behind, but I 

 furbished up and put a white fly on the tarpon tackle, and 

 caught a number of mackerel with this primitive form of fly- 

 fishing. 



