The Silver King 



anything else, dollars often twice their natural size 

 onto which the purest of molten silver had been 

 dropped, scales that flash a thousand rays in every 

 direction, and in the full glare of the sun form so 

 many sunbursts to dazzle the eye and confuse the 

 excited angler. 



I have taken the sabalo under many circumstances, 

 have seen it leap all over the Florida reef and down 

 by the Rio Grande, where it forms in gigantic schools 

 and moves south in the winter, and everywhere it is 

 the same sensational equilibrist, the same " air 

 climber " and " sky scraper " when hooked. What 

 the sensations of the tarpon are when snared it would 

 be difficult to say, but I fancy it is frightened and 

 leaps in the direction away from the pain center, with 

 no two leaps alike. 



It may go directly up, carrying a big wave with it, 

 and lash the air, or it may go out of water head first, 

 rising like a ray of light ten or fifteen or more feet, to 

 fall gracefully into the water. I have seen the fright- 

 ened tarpon standing on its tail twelve feet up, as 

 upright as a soldier, to exactly the opposite direction, 

 and an angler told me that he had seen one make a 

 lateral leap of thirty feet. I have, in hauling the 

 seine on the Florida reef, seen the sabalo or tarpon 

 come flying out of it with such force and rapidity 

 that men dodged with great difficulty, and more than 

 one man has lost his life in this way. Indeed the 

 tarpon is a dangerous fish to experiment with. The 



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