The High Leapers 



have seen them jump twenty feet in distance when 

 coming toward the boat on slack line. Tarpon while 

 feeding on their natural food rarely, if ever, go over 

 four feet in the air. I have seen on several differ- 

 ent occasions the channel between Mustang and St. 

 Joseph Islands at the Pass, fairly alive with leaping 

 tarpon, who were coming down with the shiners and 

 knocking them in every direction. The fish were so 

 plentiful and were out of the water so much that it 

 was dangerous to row a boat among them." 



Few anglers have taken as many tarpon as Judge 

 A. W. Houston, of San Antonio, and I have had the 

 pleasure of fishing with him in the Aransas Pass. In 

 the evening at the old Tarpon Club (now, no more) 

 we often exchanged opinions and experiences regard- 

 ing the leap of the Silver King. As to his own obser- 

 vations he said: 



" The leap of a tarpon is so attractive and exciting, 

 especially when he has been hooked, that one is very 

 liable to overestimate the height which he attains, and 

 I shall therefore be so conservative in my estimate as 

 not to exaggerate the facts. When first hooked, I 

 am sure that I have seen them leap fully ten feet 

 above the surface of the water. While sitting in a 

 chair in my fishing-skiff I have had one jump over my 

 head, which must have required him to attain a height 

 of between five and one-half and six feet from the 

 water level. I am sure, in my experience in landing 

 about three hundred of these fish, that I have often 



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