THE BOOK OF THE TARPON 



Island. The tired tarpon had ceased to leap 

 and the slow, rhythmic motion of his tail barely 

 kept him afloat, while with an audibly beating 

 heart I gently pulled the skiff beside him. 



I handed my rod to Tat and, taking the gaff 

 from him, struck the tarpon in the throat with it. 

 The fish gave a lurch, and as I threw my weight 

 back on the gaff, it straightened out and I went 

 over backward into the Homosassa River. I 

 scrambled into the skiff only to find a rod 

 broken, a line parted, and the record of the first 

 tarpon taken on rod and reel lost forever. I 

 scolded Tat, blamed myself, and anathematized 

 the gaff. But a gaff which is good for a fifty- 

 pound salmon is only a toy to a tarpon of fair 

 size. 



For many days, from dawn to dark, I trolled 

 from the Homosassa Spring, where the beauti- 

 ful river rises, to Shell Island at its mouth, but 

 all in vain, for not another tarpon rose to my 

 lure. 



In the years that followed, strange stories 

 were told by fishermen of wonderful creatures 

 that seized their bait and, leaping above the sur- 

 face of the water, hurled it a hundred feet into 



16 



