Captiva and Boca Grande Passes 



overboard and the boat is rowed after the fish. 

 The flood tide I found the best for hooking 

 tarpon they seem to come in from the sea on 

 the flood and go out on the ebb tides. It is not 

 advisable to fish too deeply here, for should you 

 do so it is almost a certainty that you hook a 

 shark or Jew fish, which are nuisances and take 

 some time to kill. You must be careful, though, 

 to weight your line according to circumstances, 

 observing what sport other boats may be having, 

 and if you fail to get a strike when fishing light, 

 try deeper. The bait in this case will be either 

 a live mullet, a thin slice from off the mullet's 

 side, leaving the scales on, or what I found to 

 be the most killing bait of all a piece of skin 

 taken from the white belly of a shark. This is 

 exceedingly tough and will last a long time. 

 A certain amount of care is necessary in the 

 preparation of this bait, but the time is well 

 spent. Tarpon take it splendidly, and cannot 

 tear it off the hook owing to its toughness. I 

 made mine in this way : I cut out a piece of skin 

 five or six inches long in the shape of a fish, the 

 head part rounded off, then cut off all the meat 

 possible, scraping it clean, and shaved the 

 pointed tail end as thin as I could get it with a 

 sharp knife. The hook is inserted in the thick 

 rounded end about a quarter of an inch from 

 its edge. This bait shows admirably in the 



water, and in a tideway the tail portion wags 



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