44 WHERE, WHEN, AND HOW TO CATCH FISH 



Capt. John calls it " Florida Food." 



About the close of the season of 1896, during which I had kept 

 house in Augustine three months, I was down at Corbett's Dock, 

 where nearly all the sailboats lie. A party of five or six white and 

 black boatmen were talking over and lamenting the bad season, which 

 had been a cold one. Some of them were wondering how they would 

 get through the summer. 



One colored man said : " Well, Ise got money enuff to buy two 

 barls grits, and I can ketch de Mullet wid my cast net, so I kin get 

 along." 



He illustrated the situation with a good many colored brothers, 

 and probably many white men. 



G. Brown Goode, in " American Fishes," 1887, says : " Although 

 Mullets are abundant almost everywhere, it is probable that no 

 stretches of sea coast in the world are so bountifully supplied with 

 them as those of our own Southern Atlantic and Gulf States, with 

 their broad margin of partially or entirely land-locked brackish water 

 and the numerous estuaries and broad river mouths. The Mullet is 

 probably the most generally popular and the most abundant fish of 

 our whole southern sea board. 



" Like the Menhaden, it utilizes food inaccessible to other fishes, 

 groping in the bottom mud, which it swallows in large quantities. 

 Like the Menhaden, it is not only caught extensively by man, but is 

 the main article of food for all the larger fishes, and is the best bait 

 fish of the regions in which it occurs." And, "In October, Char- 

 lotte Harbor, Sarasota Bay, and Palmasola Bay, seem to be the head- 

 quarters of all the Mullets of the Gulf. Tampa Bay, Anclote River, 

 Homosassa River and vicinity, are also favorite spawning places. 

 During the fall they move in such immense schools, that the noise of 

 their splashing in the water resembles distant thunder ; and to persons 

 living near the river or bay, their noise, kept up day and night, 

 becoming very annoying." 



I have heard and seen all the above movements of schools of 

 Mullet in Indian River ; many times their rushes, when pursued by 

 Porpoise, Sharks, and Cavalle, sounding like distant thunder or 

 artillery. 



About November 1, 1900, while I was aboard my boat, at anchor, 

 opposite Mosquito Lighthouse, about the middle of the stream, just 

 after dark I heard a great commotion in the water; looking out I 



