164 FISHES OF THE EAST ATLANTIC COAST. 



ward house. As the boat was passing St. Johns Bluff, a small 

 frisky tarpon leaped from the water, cleared the guards, and landed 

 in the captain's lap. The juvenile vaulter was secured, and weighed 

 sixty -eight pounds, being the smallest specimen that has been cap- 

 tured in this river to my knowledge. 



About a year since a party was sailing a boat in Clear Water 

 Harbor, and a frolicsome tarpon amused himself by jumping over 

 the boat, and in his course stuck above the boom, and in an instant 

 the old sail was in tatters. 



Some years since a man was fishing for channel bass, in an ancient 

 dug out near the mouth of Trout Creek, a tributary of the St. Johns 

 River. A jovial tarpon vaulted in the air, landed in the canoe, and 

 the bottom was knocked out of the machine. The fish escaped, the 

 fisherman caught a ducking, and was rescued by parties anchored 

 near by. 



When in a vaulting mood, I have hundreds of times seen large 

 tarpon clear the water with their tails from one to four feet. On 

 one occasion my friend P. was fishing at Mile Point and a large 

 frisky tarpon jumped near his boat, rounded the sand bar and re- 

 peated his aerial feats fifteen times. In Sept. J 81 I was fishing at 

 the same point for these fish, using a large cork float, for tackle a 

 gang of large Virginia hooks, and for bait two halves of a mullet. 

 The float disappeared, and instantly there appeared in the air, the 

 largest tarpon I ever saw. He left the water at an angle, and, as 

 improbable as it may appear to the uninterested, he landed at least 

 twenty feet from where he left his native element. Whilst in the 

 air he opened his capacious mouth, shook his head like a terrier 

 shaking a rat, and my gang of hooks went flying through the air. 

 On many occasions I have had these fish seize my bait and run with 

 lightning like rapidity for twenty or a hundred yards, then leap into 

 the air, shake their heads and expel the bait. 



It has been my lot to capture many varieties of fish in various 

 portions of the United States, and in different oceans of this world, 

 but I never found anything to even approach the lightning-like 

 dashes of the tarpon. On one occasion my frienu 1>. ***** ..- u uig 

 opposite the old Light House at Mayport for channel bass. Bites 



