292 Big Game Fishes 



spots, seemed more beautiful than any I had pre- 

 viously caught; and when my professional com- 

 panion came ashore with sixty to salt down, the 

 homely boat fairly glowed with the golden glint 

 reflected from the brilliant throng. 



The Spanish mackerel has a wide range from 

 Brazil to Gloucester and on the Pacific Coast of 

 America, everywhere held in high esteem as the 

 finest of table fishes. It is usually caught by troll- 

 ing, and is essentially a surface fish. Its schedule 

 of migration may be considered as follows : It 

 arrives off the western Florida coast in March and 

 reaches North Carolina about the same time. In 

 May I have taken them off the rip-raps, at the 

 entrance to the Chesapeake, and large quantities 

 are taken on the Eastern shores. The movement 

 is northward, and by July they appear in the 

 waters about New York, moving slowly up the 

 coast, everywhere in demand. Mr. Earll states 

 in his exhaustive monograph on this fish that it 

 spawns near Sandy Hook, in Chesapeake Bay, and 

 in Pamlico Sound, beginning in April in the latter 

 and ending in August in the former. The eggs 

 of a six-pound fish he estimates equal 1,500,000. 

 As soon as cool weather approaches in the fall the 

 Spanish mackerel moves, and by October it has 



