FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



Then the murder was out, for the fish revealed itself as, with one excep- 

 tion, the smallest in all my catch, a little fellow of not more than thirty or 

 forty pounds. It is common knowledge with fishermen that a small fish 

 hooked close to the tail can give as good an account of itself as one three 

 times the size hooked fairly in the mouth. This little tarpon was still better 

 off, since it was not hooked at all, but, in some incredible fashion, the wire 

 leader had made a noose round its tail, the point of the hook having caught 

 fast in one of the links of the chain. This accounted for the strength with 

 which so small a fish was able to fight, though the suddenness with which 

 it gave up the struggle is less easy to understand. The bait was untouched, 

 but it was doomed to fail mie. No sooner had I released the little prisoner 

 than the bait was again taken by a tarpon, but the hook came away imme- 

 diately with a beautiful little tarpon scale impaled on the point of it. Two 

 such uncommon experiences within an hour seem a generous share, but I 

 am giving the facts as they were. 



Too often, without any apparent fault on the part of the angler, the 

 hook comes away at the first jump of the tarpon, and in some cases it 

 flies alarmingly near the man in the boat. Now and then, too, when he 

 has his fish seemingly well hooked, there comes a sudden check, and he 

 reels in, to find that fish, hook and leader are all gone, with goodness 

 knows how many yards of line as well. This is not the work of the tarpon 

 at all, but of a smaller intruder called kingfish, which, to serve its own 

 ends, gives its big neighbour its liberty. What happens is this. The bait 

 runs up the line when the tarpon seizes the hook. This is a familiar result 

 in other kinds of fishing, notably for large pollack and bass, and opinions 

 are divided as to whether the fish blows the bait up the line in its futile 

 effort to eject the hook, or whether it takes out the line so rapidly as to 

 pull it through the hole in the bait. When the tarpon bait has travelled 

 some distance up the line, the gleam of it attracts a roving kingfish, 

 which just cuts through the line with its razor -like jaws and goes off. 

 The only remedy for such a contretemps is a rigid piece of wire attached 

 just below the swivel and at right angles to the leader. This should effec- 

 tually prevent the bait going above the wire, and against that even the jaws 

 of the kingfish are powerless. 



Such is the manner of trolling in the deep water of Boca Grande. In 



Captiva Pass, which is shallower, no lead is used, but I believe that the 



proportion of fish lost to the number of strikes is much greater. In the 



river at Tampico the sinker is also dispensed with, and the bait is a mullet 



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