THE TARPON 25 



mullet for bait and with one hundred feet of 

 wet line. When a tarpon was hooked your 

 guide would throw the buoyed anchor rope 

 overboard and you would follow the fish. Hav- 

 ing your anchor buoyed saved time and it also 

 gave you a reserved position to return to. 



When Mr. Mygatt discovered Boca Grande 

 as a fishing possibility (1898), owing to the great 

 depth of water there drift fishing was adopted. 



The leader used is of heavy strong piano wire 

 six feet in length and at the upper or rod end of 

 the leader a sinker is fastened to the swivel or 

 ring with a light piece of string. The hook, is 

 baited with a live blue crab or a strip of mullet. 

 The launch goes under power to the entrance to 

 the Pass and drifts in with the tide. The fisher- 

 man keeps the hook off the bottom, in other 

 words slowly trolls the bait close to the bottom 

 where the tarpon lie. 



As the depth of water changes, the length of 

 line is changed. If you hook a fish his first 

 jump frees the sinker. The drawback to this 

 fishing is that the sharks are numerous and steal 

 the hooked fish. 



To my mind this is the most uninteresting 

 form of tarpon fishing, for to hook a fish near 

 the bottom in 60 feet of water does not give the 



