The Channel Fishes 317 



surface-feeding fishes, as kingfish, cero, Spanish 

 mackerel, bonitos, large groupers and snappers, 

 etc. The troll is usually a piece of bacon-skin 

 cut of an elliptical shape to simulate a fish, and 

 is impaled on a codfish hook with a snell of 

 copper wire, and a laid cotton codfish line of a 

 size nearly as large as a lead-pencil. The hook- 

 ing and hauling aboard of the fish, while under 

 sail, so disables it that it is killed by a blow on 

 the head and carried to market on ice. 



As all of the grunts, snappers, porgies, and 

 other channel fishes grow only to a foot or two 

 in length, the same tackle may answer for all. 

 The fishing is done in water of varying depth, 

 from a few feet to twenty or more, from an 

 anchored boat. The best plan for the angler 

 who is visiting Key West for the first time is 

 to go out with a market fisherman in his boat 

 and learn by ocular evidence the modus operandi 

 of channel fishing. After that he will be pre- 

 pared to follow his own devices and fish in the 

 same or an improved way. 



A stiffish black-bass rod, or the Little Giant 

 rod of seven and one-half feet and eight ounces, 

 a modification of the Henshall black-bass rod, 

 are quite suitable, though the market fishermen 



