248 Big Game Fishes 



with a thirty-seven cotton line endeavoring to trip 

 or throw it in the air. 



At times, when a dozen or more boats have 

 been fishing here, six or eight tarpons have been 

 seen in the air at the same moment, and the lofty 

 tumbling productive of much entertainment. A 

 large fish hooked by a member of the Tarpon 

 Club leaped over the boat of Judge Houston ; 

 and a fish hooked by another angler leaped into 

 the air and struck the chair of the occupant of 

 another boat, almost knocking him overboard. 

 In such a whirl of excitement it is evident that 

 angler and boatman must be on the alert, not only 

 to secure their own fish, but to avoid the air rushes 

 of the frenzied game of some one else. 



The second tarpon I hooked was kept at short 

 line especially to observe the leap, in a hope to 

 photograph it; but when the splendid creature 

 went into the air higher than my head, not ten 

 feet distant, hurling the spray over me, I confess 

 that all thoughts of the kodak vanished. When 

 in the air, the fish was apparently headed for me, 

 but it dropped alongside with a crash, and as the 

 warning of the boatman came, fearing that the 

 fish would come aboard, it dashed by me three 

 feet under water, canted upward at an angle that 





