26 SEA FISH OF TRINIDAD 



also remarked en passant that it is one of the finest table 

 fish in these waters. 



The Tarpon or Grand-ecaille. The famous " Silver King" 

 as he is commonly called in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida is 

 very plentiful in Trinidad waters, especially at the river 

 mouths, the rocks and reefs of the Bocas, and all points and 

 headlands round the coast. The best season for fishing 

 them, may be said to range from the end of June to the be- 

 ginning of November. Although I consider both the car- 

 angue and king-fish to be more game as to their fighting quali- 

 ties than the tarpon, the latter fish is far ahead of the others 

 in point of wiliness and general cunning. He is the Machia- 

 velli of the finny tribe, his manoeuvres at and round the bait 

 are protean. At one time he will hit the bait with a rush, 

 directly he feels the hook, executing a tiger-like spring from 

 the water into the air, in all probability ejecting the hook at 

 first jimip, especially if it has taken him in the top jaw or 

 palate where it cannot possibly find secure hold on account of 

 the bony plates there. On another occasion he will hit the 

 bait with a similar bang, and drop it at once like a naughty 

 boy at a runaway ring of the door-bell. Other times he will 

 swim round the bait giving it occasional little light tugs, or 

 more imperceptible sucks. Even when fairly hooked in the 

 lower jaw, after making three or four springs in the air and 

 finding them ineffectual, he will float on top of the water 

 foxing, pretending he is exhausted, evidently hoping the 

 fisherman will haul him in, until he gets on the wire when he 

 will make a fresh rush and kink it, after which he can easily 

 break it and get away. Even when gaffed and put in the 

 boat he must be speedily stunned with a club or he will jump 

 out again. The local fisherman have a proverb to the effect 

 that "the grand-ecaille is never dead until he is in the pot." 

 I have known a large tarpon hooked in Huevos Bay, and 

 played with a rod until the fisherman thought he was ex- 

 hausted, and as it was inconvenient to put him in the boat, 

 the conqueror resolved to tow him home to Domus Bay, 

 Monos, across the Second Boca, a distance of at least a mile 

 and a half, but on arriving at Domus, when attempting to 

 beach him he actually got away, although to all appearances 



