5o6 MODERN SEA FISHING 



the very young Englishmen for whom we had brought our in- 

 formal introduction in the shape of bottles of beer. They had 

 not tasted Bass's ale for some years, and were delighted. 



It is obvious that one of the most important things in tarpon 

 fishing is a good guide and boatman. Just as a bad gaffer can 

 and does lose any number of salmon, so does a bad boatman 

 who does not know how to gaff bring about endless disappoint- 

 ment to a tarpon fisher. A good many of the Florida fishing 

 guides are coloured men ; but with one exception, Fulton Ma- 

 guire at Punta Gorda, I would not recommend them. Maguire 

 looks to me like a negro with a good deal of Indian blood in 

 him. I found him an excellent and most intelligent companion 

 and most anxious to kill. The ordinary niggers seemed to me 

 to be very lazy, inclined to be extremely impertinent if one 

 treated them with the same familiarity one would adopt with an 

 ordinary gillie, and altogether without presence of mind. 



A special kind of boat is used in some places, the peculiarity 

 of which is that it has a revolving seat in the centre, with a 

 small cup in front, in which to place the rod when playing a 

 fish. In the course of a long fight it might be necessary to sit 

 down, but the ordinary boats seem quite suitable. In case any- 

 one thinks of taking a folding boat to Florida, I would say that 

 it must be flat-bottomed, for in travelling one had to pass over 

 many shoals. I do not fancy an ordinary canvas collapsible 

 boat would be much use. The shoals are, as a rule, covered 

 with oysters, which, though excellent to eat, have extremely 

 sharp shells. They play havoc with even a stout canoe. 



Capturing a tarpon though only a ten-pounder on one 

 of Farlow's light greenheart trout rods is a feat upon which I 

 pride myself. According to Colonel Haldeman, of Louisville, 

 Kentucky whose contribution on tarpon fishing to the well- 

 known volume, ' American Game Fish,' is most admirably 

 done small tarpon are but rarely taken. One day I had been 



