CHAPTER X 

 THE TARPON SWAMPS US 



WE hit the top of the tarpon season at 

 Turner's River and for three days 

 the fish stood in line, waiting their 

 turn like metropolitans seeking good seats at the 

 opera or holding their places in the bread line. 

 No sooner had we turned loose an exhausted 

 tarpon than a fresh one presented itself for the 

 vacant chair. Twenty tarpon a day was our 

 score, of fish that ran from ten to thirty pounds 

 each. Most of them were taken on the fly-rod, 

 for which they were too large, as their weight 

 was light for a heavy rod in such blase hands as 

 ours were becoming. 



Much of the action of a fly-rod is wasted with 

 a fish of the tarpon type weighing over five 

 pounds and much time lost from the camera 

 standpoint since it is hard to hold the fish near 



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