FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 fishing in an approaching thunderstorm off Punta Gorda. Once hooked, 

 a squeateague of two or three pounds plays in a fashion not unlike a 

 mackerel, boring in circles and doing its best to double under the boat. 

 In their right season (whenever that may be) these "trout" are said to 

 be good eating, but in May I found each one full of worms and fit only to 

 throw back alive. The sheepshead, which is a black bream, must be 

 caught from the wharves, with a fiddler-crab for bait. These crabs simply 

 swarm in the mangrove roots above highwater mark, but at the least 

 sign of danger they dart back into their burrows at top speed, and some 

 skill is requisite in catching them alive. It was while so engaged that a 

 friend of mine, on his second day at Useppa, going barefoot in the shallows, 

 ripped his foot on a broken bottle and was obliged to hurry north for 

 surgical aid, an abrupt ending indeed to his holiday. The fiddler crab 

 is hooked through the tail and used on float tackle, so adjusted that the 

 bait just clears the bottom. In this way it is dropped as close to the piles 

 as is considered safe, and it is no easy matter to keep a fish of even four 

 pounds (the heaviest I caught) clear of the wharf. 



Several other small and attractive fish are caught in these backwaters, 

 including Spanish mackerel, which grow to three or four pounds' weight, 

 lady-fish (also called "weak fish"), which, though weighing only a pound 

 or two, leap on the hook like trout, and others. The most plentiful of all 

 are those vermin, the catfish, and the only hope of avoiding them is to keep 

 the minnow well away from the bottom. 



My own fishing was, as will have been seen, on the west coast of Florida, 

 but excellent sport is to be enjoyed on the east side, off Miami, Palm Beach 

 and the Keys, and I have to thank Hugh T. Pigott, Esq., for the accom- 

 panying photograph of his big sailfish, as well as for the following interest- 

 ing note on these localities: 



" The largest sailfish I saw measured eight feet three inches. Mine 

 is six feet nine inches, and I caught it off Miami while fishing the 

 Pass for tarpon. It played right on top of the water, occasionally mak- 

 ing small jumps, varied by long runs. The ' sail ' and ' centreboard * 

 are very curious. This year (1912) has been an extraordinarily good 

 one for sailfish, and I believe that over thirty have been caught at 

 Palm Beach alone, whereas in previous years ten were the usual 

 number caught for the whole season. Palm Beach, Miami and the 

 Keys (outside) are, I fancy, the only localities in which this fish is 

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