The Taking of Big Game Fishes 



my boatman several years previous in the vicinity of 

 Boon Island Light, on the Maine coast. My Indian 

 boatman on the Florida reef considered me mad, I 

 doubt not, when I remarked that I could take a big 

 devil-fish or a sawfish with the grains from a small 

 boat. I recollect when some journal came out with 

 a letter in which the writer offered to defray the 

 expenses of any angler who would go to Florida 

 and successfully take a tarpon with rod and reel. 

 The impossible came to pass; hundreds of tarpon are 

 caught every season with a mere thread. The giant 

 horse-mackerel, or tuna, has been conquered.* An 

 acquaintance fought a gigantic sail, or swordfish, in 

 the Indian Ocean with rod and line until the fish 

 leaped through the sail. The giant ray is taken, 

 and has long been classed among game fish in the 

 Carolinas. 



The big game fishes of the world are compara- 

 tively few in numbers. Some of them are as follows : 

 The tarpon, record rod catch, 223 pounds, by Dr. 

 Howe, of Mexico, attains a weight of 300 pounds; 

 black sea bass, California, 700 pounds, record catch 

 by Mr. L. G. Murphy, 436 pounds; leaping tuna, 

 1,000 pounds, record catch by Col. C. P. Morehouse, 

 251 pounds; the jewfish of Florida or Texas, 800 

 pounds; the Bahamian barracuda, 100 pounds or 

 more ; black grouper, 600 pounds ; the white sea bass, 



* The author took a 1 8 3 -pound tuna with rod, reel and 2 1 -thread line in four 

 hours. 



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