The Silver King 



there was at the hottest period, August ist, yet I 

 found it comfortable on the fishing grounds and mos- 

 quitoes were not a pest, which cannot be said of 

 Florida, with all its charms of location. Theoreti- 

 cally, tarpon can be found from Aransas Pass all 

 around the Gulf to the St. John's on the east coast of 

 Florida in summer, but there is a vast difference in 

 location. 



Up to within a few years winter tarpon fishing has 

 been unknown, but Tampico, Mexico, has been discov- 

 ered to be the winter home of the great bands of 

 tarpon which sail up and down the coast winter and 

 summer in their various migrations, and in the brack- 

 ish mouth of the Panuco River the great fish lie in 

 countless numbers and afford sport under conditions 

 which are doubtless much more comfortable than those 

 of Florida. It is possible to-day, then, to find tarpon 

 at any time, there being three great regions : that of the 

 Southern Florida coast on both sides down to Key 

 West, which can be fished from March or April to 

 October, the season varying at different points; the 

 Aransas Pass region, where the season is the same, 

 and Tampico in midwinter. 



While this article is being written I have received 

 a letter from the Panama coast telling me of the cap- 

 ture of a large fish called the sabalo, showing that 

 the great game fish is in the Pacific. Curiously 

 enough, it has never been seen on the Californian 

 coast where the water is moderately warm, but on 



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