136 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



as we draw up to the pier. In my own mind great 

 also is the regret that fifteen such magnificent fish 

 should be slain to no purpose. Hunting and fish- 

 ing for the pot are justifiable in the eyes of all but 

 the anaemic zealots who live on nut foods, but this 

 purposeless, wasteful shambles on Useppa Pier is 

 sickening, and those who organise the annual tarpon 

 carnival would deserve better of their generation if 

 they could make some kind of arrangement for 

 weighing each fish in something like a net bag, 

 not impaled on the hook of a steelyard. The 

 apparatus should be kept down at the Pass, so 

 that it would be possible to turn each fish adrift 

 after weighing it. It is alleged that fish so restored 

 to the water would at once fall victims to sharks, 

 but I disbelieve this absolutely. Seeing that, as 

 will presently be shown, a tarpon can often elude 

 a shark even on the hook, it is by no means likely 

 that the shark would succeed in catching it without 

 such handicap. 



This is my last day, for on the morrow I must 

 be on my homeward journey by way of the calm 

 Caribbean. 



On the whole I am well satisfied with the 

 results of my trip. Seventeen tarpon in eleven days 

 of fishing are, says the veteran, a very good record. 

 Not one of my fish is really big, as tarpon go, yet 

 it is good luck to have caught the best of them on 

 my last afternoon, and with a borrowed tip after 

 the sharks had broken my own. 



The following is the Useppa record for the 

 summer of 1906. The season lasted, as will be 

 seen, from 2ist April to igth May, but one or 

 two of the party were fishing at Useppa from 



