Big Game at Sea 



two or three miles distant. The birds were laying, 

 and their speckled eggs so covered the ground in the 

 interior that it was difficult to walk in places without 

 crushing them. The eggs were delicious, from the 

 camping standard, and with green turtle steak and 

 broiled kingfish and barracuda constituted our daily 

 fare. 



I had seen a jewfish (Frontier ops guttatus) in Key 

 West, a monster weighing three or four hundred 

 pounds, a giant in brown, a big grouper; and now, 

 being upon the jewfish domain, proposed to try con- 

 clusions with one. Scope protested that the old 

 wreck, the larger portion of which was in the coral 

 in thirty feet of water, was the lair of a particularly 

 large jewfish. He had frequently hooked it and once 

 had brought it to the surface ; so, early one morning, 

 we pushed off and anchored the dinghy over the old 

 wreck. I confess that it is not to describe the jewfish, 

 as it is a libel on the game fishes, that I have admitted 

 it among this honorable company, but to illustrate the 

 remarkable variety of fishes taken from this ancient 

 vessel laden with doubloons. Jewfish tackle was an 

 Eastern halibut line, a small shark hook baited with 

 a five-pound yellowtail; and as it sometimes was a 

 waiting proposition I threw over a handline rigged, as 

 all lines were here, with a sinker on the bottom and 

 the hooks six or eight inches above, thus enabling 

 them to swing clear of coral. As soon as the single 

 line reached the bottom I hooked a grunt, a three- 



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