Tarpon Fishing- in Mexico. 19 



guess when I catch a oHmpse of his shinino- side as he turns 

 a foot or two under the surface ; and he soon walks into 

 my parlour, the shallow bay. I get him up close to the boat 

 and very tired, then handing my rod to the boatman, as time 

 is of great importance I attempt to gaff him and strike him 

 somewhere amidships, but to my great surprise I only tear off two 

 or three scales. The touch of the gaff revivifies the tarpon, who 

 makes off again with a splash that wets me all over. However, 

 he is soon back, and I try again with the same result ; so I give it 

 up and land him on the sand as I had the first. (Vis.) There 

 are only two ways of gaffing a tarpon. The first is to strike the 

 point into the comparatively soft scales under the throat and near 

 the gills, but the great and insuperable drawback to this method 

 is that it invariably causes the death of the fish and does no good 

 to the skin, if it is destined to remind its captor, from a glass case, 

 of a grand day's sport, and to raise aspirations in the minds of the 

 uninitiated. The second method and the one invariably adopted 

 by the writer, when landing is inconvenient, is to place the gaff 

 gently inside the mouth of the tarpon, strike the point through 

 the membrane stretching across the lower jaw, lift his head out of 

 the water up against the side of the boat, remove the hook and 

 wish bo)i voyage to a lovely fish and a grand fighter. 



This method has, besides the advantacre of causing the 

 minimum of [)ain to the fish, the still greater advantaoe of not 

 spilling a drop of blood, for blood to a shark is much like; a red 

 rag to a bull, and a bleeding tarpon stands a poor chance : but as 

 a famous author would .say, that is another story. Pray pardon 

 this digression, while we were e.xamming our latest catch : and 



v> 2 



