THE BOOK OF THE TARPON 



pon had been waiting for and just as he finished 

 it there was a jerk on my line and the biggest 

 tarpon I had ever seen shot high in the air. I 

 can safely call it any size I please, since I had 

 never a chance to measure it. It looked and 

 pulled like the biggest kind of a fish, but it 

 jumped as often as a little one. Straight out for 

 the Florida Straits it swam, never swerving from 

 its course, but tearing line from the reel in spite 

 of all the strain I could put on it with the cap- 

 tain paddling his best. Suddenly the fish 

 changed its method and after two leaps in quick 

 succession swam for the canoe, swift and straight 

 as an arrow. 



The effort to keep a strain on the line was 

 hopeless, yet I reeled in as fast as I could, but 

 when the tarpon made a long, low leap, striking 

 the water a canoe length from us, I was at least 

 fifty feet of line to the bad. I wound on desper- 

 ately, though I knew if the jump were repeated 

 the canoe would be split fore and aft, while a 

 number of things might happen to me. Instead 

 of knocking me endwise as I feared, the tarpon 

 swerved aside and when the line tautened it led 

 behind the canoe and ran under the bow of the 



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