Captiva and Boca Grande Passes 
overboard and the boat is rowed after the fish. 
The flood tide I found the best for hooking 
tarpon—they seem to come in from the sea on 
the flood and go out on the ebb tides. It is not 
advisable to fish too deeply here, for should you 
do so it is almost a certainty that you hook a 
shark or Jew fish, which are nuisances and take 
some time to kill. You must be careful, though, 
to weight your line according to circumstances, 
observing what sport other boats may be having, 
and if you fail to get a strike when fishing light, 
try deeper. The bait in this case will be either 
a live mullet, a thin slice from off the mullet’s 
side, leaving the scales on, or—what I found to 
be the most killing bait of all—a piece of skin 
taken from the white belly of a shark. This is 
exceedingly tough and will last a long time. 
A certain amount of care is necessary in the 
preparation of this bait, but the time is well 
spent. Tarpon take it splendidly, and cannot 
tear it off the hook owing to its toughness. I 
made mine in this way: I cut out a piece of skin 
five or six inches long in the shape of a fish, the 
head part rounded off, then cut off all the meat 
possible, scraping it clean, and shaved the 
pointed tail end as thin as I could get it with a 
sharp knife. The hook is inserted in the thick 
rounded end about a quarter of an inch from 
its edge. This bait shows admirably in the 
water, and in a tideway the tail portion wags 
181 
