FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



Florida, which is caught with a fiddler-crab for bait, as described in the 

 chapter on tarpon fishing. Another black bream is caught from the break- 

 water at Bermuda on very fine tackle, and the bait is a piece of potato. 

 Yet another, which gives capital sport, particularly at night, throughout 

 the Mediterranean, is what the Greeks of Asia Minor call sargos. I first 

 caught this fish at night in the year 1891, off the Molo Nuovo, at Leghorn, 

 and again at Derinje, in the Gulf of Ismidt, nearly twenty years later, 

 while we used also to catch it from the rocks on the Ilheo de Gima, some 

 forty miles from Madeira. In the Gulf of Ismidt, my Greek fisherman 

 used a liquid " groundbait " very like the berley of Australian memories, 

 only compounded chiefly of stale cheese and fish, with plenty of water, 

 and baled out as sparingly as if it had been old Tokay. As in Australia, 

 the bait was a prawn, and the nervousness of the fish was also assumed, 

 as I was forbidden even to smoke an after-dinner cigar, for fear lest the 

 gleam should frighten the sargos away. When hooked, these fish fight 

 madly to get among the piles of the quay, and, in the pitch darkness, 

 it is no easy matter to keep them clear, though a rod is certainly of great 

 assistance. I was at first inclined to disbelieve my Greek when he assured 

 me that they would not take a bait during the day, but conviction was 

 borne upon me after I had seen over a dozen, some of large size, swim 

 round and round my bait one hot morning without looking at it. On the 

 other hand, in the deeper water round the Ilheo de Gima these fish feed all 

 through the day, and we used to groundbait with a mixture of crabs and 

 sweet potatoes, baiting with a crab's leg. These crabs were very active, 

 and became so accustomed to our raids among the rocks that they were 

 quick to escape, and had eventually to be shot individually with a small 

 bore rifie, one of the most singular methods of procuring bait in all my 

 experience. 



The finest bream of my acquaintance is the red merjan of the Sea of 

 Marmora. It grows certainly to a weight of twenty-five pounds, and 

 probably even heavier. There is, in all the Sea of Marmora, only one spot 

 that I know of where the merjan is regularly caught every summer, and 

 that is round a particular submerged rock a mile or two off the Greek 

 village of Pendik. The exact whereabouts of the rock is known only to old 

 Yanni, the father of my gillie during my stay in that part of Turkey. 

 He discovered it many years ago, and has since regarded it as his own 

 private preserve, and as he is held in respect, not unmixed with terror, 

 by his neighbours, no one is likely to dispute his monopoly. He certainly 

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