The Silver King 



against the pilothouse, just as you are." The skipper 

 looked around as though expecting a repetition, and 

 to be on the safe side I got up and moved away, 

 pretending to look over the rail. " He hit the man 

 fair in the lap, rolled him over on the deck and 

 busted the chair." 



This induced me to go ashore at Pilottown, at 

 the mouth of the river, where I had an interesting 

 and varied experience catching everything from 

 sharks to coons, and never seeing a tarpon or sabalo, 

 though there are tarpon there at times. I " still- 

 fished " for channel bass at the mouth of the river, 

 where the tide was so swift that it brought heavy lead 

 sinkers to the surface, helped land a huge sunfish 

 which I sighted coming over the bar, and which 

 grounded like a ship, keeled over and began to beat 

 the water into foam, and soon fell a victim. I did 

 my most exciting fishing at the mouth of the river 

 where the channel came in near shore. The shad 

 were running and the men were catching these 

 delicious fish in great numbers, and after them, liter- 

 ally in their wake, came sharks of all kinds and 

 degrees, colors and conditions of servitude. I no- 

 ticed this at once, as my first cast from the beach 

 resulted in hooking a large shark which carried me 

 knee deep and then took the line; and forthwith I 

 procured shark tackle, and with shad bait had the 

 sport of my life with sharks, landing many single- 

 handed from the beach, and finally losing line and a 



265 



