THE BOOK OF THE TARPON 



give way in an instant. The fisherman gently 

 lifted his rod and, as he watched the outgoing 

 line, poured a dipper of water over the reel to 

 reduce the heat from the friction which would 

 follow the waking of the tarpon. 



There was a lesson in every motion of the 

 line for the man who could read it. A jerky ac- 

 tion, with a run of a few inches at a time, prob- 

 ably meant that catfish were stealing the bait ; a 

 slow, steady outgoing of the line was likely to 

 be caused by a sting-ray; a more rapid rush in- 

 dicated that a shark had found the bait and, 

 after the manner of his species, was seeking se- 

 clusion before swallowing it, while a short, slow 

 run, followed in a minute or two by another and 

 another gave hope of a Silver King to the fish- 

 erman. Yet whatever the symptoms, as the 

 diagnosis could not be certain, the treatment was 

 the same. When about forty feet of line had 

 run out, the fisherman, holding rod and reel 

 firmly, struck with force enough to bury the 

 barbed hook deep in the body of the fish. Often 

 there followed a hard pull, steadily continued, 

 which no drag on the line could modify. A few 

 minutes of this, a boat dragged back and forth 



20 



