The High Leapers 



ditions they are incomparable game fishes, but not, at 

 least in my experience, jumpers. Judge Houston 

 tells me that they never leap when hooked, but when 

 feeding he has seen them go eighteen feet into the 

 air, a record which gives them rank with the tarpon ; 

 and Mr. Reed, already quoted, who has a record of 

 fifty-nine tarpon in four consecutive days, told me 

 that the kingfish jumped when trolling from a fast- 

 going launch, a method in vogue at Tarpon, Texas. 

 Mr. Waddell in referring to his experiences at Aran- 

 sas with the kingfish states that the leaps of the king- 

 fish for the bait trolling at high speed are marvelous. 

 " Without exaggeration," he says, in the Forest and 

 Stream, of April 21, 1906, " I have seen them make 

 rainbow jumps fully fifty feet long and twenty high; 

 and once I saw two of them make such jumps at the 

 same instant, and exactly abreast. It was a magnifi- 

 cent sight; although the fish thus jumping seldom if 

 ever misses the bait it is by no means always hooked. 

 It is," continues Mr. Waddell, " curious that not- 

 withstanding its great leaping ability the kingfish 

 never leaves the water after it is hooked." 



This is equally true of the famous leaping tuna. 

 In twenty years' experience in the tuna country I 

 have never seen a fish leap after being hooked, or 

 after the fashion of the tarpon, and have heard but 

 one angler state that he had seen such a leap. The 

 tuna, which ranges up to fifteen hundred pounds in 

 weight, jumps for pleasure and to secure its prey, 



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