CHAPTER X 



THE BLUEFISH 



" Fisherman. Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. 

 Master. Why, as men do a-land : the great ones eat up the 

 little ones." Pericles. 



NOT far from the isle of Patience, in Rhode 

 Island waters, an old longshoreman and fisherman 

 once informed me that he had taken one hundred 

 and forty " horse-mackerel " in a single day. In 

 Georgia at the mouth of the St. Mary's not far 

 from Dungeness, my sable boatman told me of 

 the delights of " skipjack " fishing in the proper 

 season. The retired New Bedford whaler, who 

 fishes near there, will show you a rod bent by 

 " snappers," and the Jamaica Bay angler esteems 

 himself in great good luck when he makes a 

 catch of "skip mackerel." I offended the Pa- 

 tience Island fishermen by intimating that one 

 horse-mackerel a season would be considered a 

 good catch by some people, and then he produced 

 the game. It was a bluefish. So, in Georgia, the 



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