FISHING AS A SPORT 



programme; in the second you may get a bite. When 

 this occurs the tarpon does not leave you in doubt for long ; 

 for, as often as not, as soon as he is hooked you hear a 

 splash and a rustle, and the giant springs up into the air 

 to a height of eight if not ten feet, shaking and clattering 

 its gills as though with fury, jerking with all the force of 

 its hundred or hundred and fifty pounds to rid itself of 

 the hook ; then, before you are quite clear as to what will 

 be your and his next move, falling back on the water 

 with noise enough to deafen one. Did you ever see, and 

 hear, a very fat swimmer who had not the faintest notion 

 of diving, throw himself from a high diving-board ? The 

 tarpon's drop is just such an ear-splitting crash, and woe 

 to the oar whereon it shall fall, or the boat either, for 

 that matter ; for if an eleven-stone man falls into a light 

 boat from a height of ten feet, the odds are in favour of a 

 breakage or a swamp ; and an eleven-stone tarpon, though 

 not exactly " a like cause," will probably produce a like 

 result. 



Night-time may be better for the sport, but the person 

 who wants to get a good insight into it, and who has 

 never seen the marvels of that quasi-tropical sea, will go 

 by day, taking with him a guide who knows what to do 

 with a pair of sculls, and who will keep his " fare " as far 

 from other boats as is convenient. To have your own 

 fish, or one that is jumping for refuge from submarine 

 enemies, drop on to your head is quite bad enough ; you 

 do not want to be troubled with other people's. Perhaps 

 your first cast is a lucky one ; you are in deep water with 

 a tide that is beginning to run in smoothly and gently ; 



