FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 131 



The tarpon are very much in evidence this fine 

 afternoon, feeding with a vengeance. If we had no 

 appetite for lunch, they are of another way of 

 thinking. Three fish I lose in rapid succession, 

 and this before any of the others get a strike. Two 

 leave me at the first jump, the other at the second. 

 I forgot to mention that ^the owner of the gun very 

 kindly lent me a spare tip, with which to finish my 

 last day's fishing, and I think that^this was perhaps 

 a trifle more elastic than that to which I had been 

 accustomed. Hence perhaps my failure to hook 

 any of the trio that set the ball rolling that 

 afternoon. 



Before I get my fourth, three other sportsmen 

 are into fish, two of these looking, so far as one can 

 judge from the brief sight of them in the air, well 

 over the 120 Ibs. mark. 



I begin to bemoan my maladroitness. Under- 

 bill hangs on my words with the unconcealed 

 admiration that only a son of Florida can feel for 

 profanity. Slap ! Bang ! This one at any rate is 

 no minnow, nor was it necessary to strike him, for 

 he is up in the air like one of the angels in the Old 

 Masters (angels of about the same weight), and the 

 line runs off in coils before I get the butt home in 

 the rest. 



" A dandy ! " says Underbill, and so, indeed, my 

 customer looks in the one brief glimpse I get at 

 close-quarters, for his next jump is a good hundred 

 yards away. And still he takes line, but at last I 

 get a move on him, and it comes in suspiciously 

 smoothly, suggestive of the fish charging our boat. 

 No sooner, however, has Underbill got way on the 

 skiff for me to reel in the slack than the tarpon is 



