Chance for a 

 Tarpon 



Sarasota Bay 



Favorite Fish and Fishing 



States Fish Commission exhibit for the Chi- 

 cago World's Fair, my duties took me to 

 Florida to collect fishes for the purpose of 

 making gelatin casts of them for the great 

 exposition. I was very desirous of obtain- 

 ing a tarpon, but the season being backward 

 and the water cold, none had been taken 

 on the west coast up to that time about 

 the middle of March. 



One day John Savarese, a prominent fish 

 dealer of Tampa, informed me that he was 

 putting in a pound net in Sarasota Bay as 

 an experiment, it being the first ever intro- 

 duced on the west coast of Florida. Here, 

 then, seemed to be my only chance of get- 

 ting a tarpon, as the time allotted for my 

 stay in Florida was rapidly drawing to a 

 close. Mr. Savarese promised to give me 

 carte blanche instructions to the man in 

 charge when the net was ready. 



Accordingly, in a few days I left 

 Tampa on the steamer for Braidentown, 

 on the Manatee River, at the beginning 

 of a norther. At Braidentown I engaged a 

 carriage and drove across country, through 

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