1 68 Big Game Fishes 



moving. Chief notified me that the jacks were 

 in the channel, which ran so near the key that 

 one could almost dive into the blue water. From 

 the sandy beach I cast, having baited with a 

 three-inch sardine, dropping the line, a number 

 twelve, with its slender copper-wire leader, 

 seventy or eighty feet from shore, then reeling 

 quickly in. Hardly had the reel gained ten 

 feet of the line when a jack shot along the 

 surface taking it deftly, then rushed away throw- 

 ing the water bravely, seemingly in search of 

 others of the school; then it felt the line, and 

 a reserve fifty feet went spinning off so rapidly 

 that I was nearly forced into the water in my 

 efforts to save something. I had not ten feet 

 of line left on the reel when I stopped the rush 

 of the valiant fish. No sulker he, but a con- 

 stant fair fighter, a rush directly away, asking 

 no favors, giving none ; now up partly into the 

 air with vigorous shake, now 'surging along the 

 surface, to turn with a lateral rush, a very 

 volley of tricks and stratagems hurled at the 

 angler with a rapidity that could not fail to 

 confuse the most phlegmatic veteran of the rod. 

 The angler's poet, the late Isaac McLellan, 

 writes : 



