TARPON IN FLORIDA 259 



There can be no doubt that trolling from a constantly moving 

 boat must be much more interesting and exciting than sitting 

 still hour after hour in an anchored one with nothing to do but 

 to watch the coils of line on the seat in the hope that they may 

 be run out by a fish. All keen anglers now collect in the Boca 

 Grande, making their temporary home either on one of the 

 many yachts or in Mr. Hughes' floating hotel about two miles 

 away. This gathering of kindred spirits is very delightful ; 

 the boats when fishing are close together, and during the lunch 

 hour, and when the tide runs too strongly, all collect at the 

 Lighthouse. Fish are measured, weighed and admired, and the 

 particulars of the capture discussed. A stroll along the snow- 

 white strand entirely formed of shells follows, when always 

 something new and beautiful is to be found, or among the 

 palmetto scrub near the shores where orange-brown lantana and 

 pink and white periwinkles are in full bloom. Shark lines 

 are set from the pier often successfully and smaller fish 

 caught, like pomponeaux or sheep-heads, for the table. Thus 

 time passes pleasantly and quickly until the fleet puts to sea 

 once more. 



It was a bad season that of 1901 : in a good one, one hundred 

 fish have been landed in a month by one individual, while twenty- 

 five was now the best score in eight to nine weeks. The scarcity 

 of tarpon was ascribed by the guides to the stormy weather ; it 

 always blew from the N.W., and the heavy swell made it often 

 very lively in the boats. We had several gales, lasting each 

 about three days, when fishing was totally out of the question. 

 Again, the heavy rollers of flood tide washing over high banks 

 carried a large quantity of sand with them and made the water 

 very thick and uninviting to the fish. Then tarpon like the sea 

 warm, but the temperature, owing to the prevailing N.W. winds, 

 remained always below their favourite degree. The above 

 reasons were no doubt answerable to some degree for the 

 smallness of the bags, but I fear others, and more serious ones, 

 contributed their share. Thus so very many tarpon have been 

 killed in this small extent of water since fishing began here, so 

 many others have been pricked and badly wounded and no 

 doubt made very shy of anything suspicious in the way of bait ; 

 they are probably kept away also by the large number of sharks 

 which haunt the place sharks which collect here, being 



