Popular Salt=Water Game Fish 



mullet upon which they feed. All down the river, 

 from the mouth of the St. Lucie past Fort Pierce, 



I saw these lively mullet, like little streaks 

 fTiv^" of molten silver, shoot above the surface 



of the glassy water. Sometimes I observed 

 a great dark form dash aAvay from our sailboat 

 driving the little mullet into the air, hundreds at 

 a time. The Indian River inlet is, at the mouth of 

 Jupiter Bay, not over a mile in width, but in the 

 deep blue water one sees great monsters wallow- 

 ing, very few feet from the shore. Lake Worth 

 lies but five miles southward; from there down to 

 ISIiami, round the peninsula, to Fort Myers, and 

 Tampa, the tarpon is found in its greatest abun- 

 dance. Other localities made famous 

 by anglers are Captiva Pass, Boca 

 Grande Pass, Marco, Naples, Pine Island, and 

 Homasossa. On the Louisiana coast the tarpon 

 is called the grande ecaille; along the Texas shore 

 the tarpon, and savanilla. The tarpon is a 

 migratory fish, moving north along the coast of 

 INIexico up to Louisiana. They appear around 



the Florida coast early in February, 

 Migration . . . „ . "^ , .'' 



increasmg rapidly m numbers m 



March, April, and May, entering rivers sometimes 

 ten miles from the mouth. The tarpon first ar- 

 rives in Aransas Pass, Texas, early in March, com- 

 ing up the coast in schools from the South, journey- 

 ing onward along the coast to Galveston and other 

 points. From the middle of April they congre- 

 gate in that locality in large numbers, but will not 

 take the bait, apparently this being their spawning 

 35 



