38 Big Game Fishes 
whipped the glassy water with flies, but in these 
early days of strenuous endeavor I doubt if I 
once attracted the serious attention of the gray 
snappers. Briefly, they ignored me, and the iron 
was entering my very soul when one day as I lay 
prone upon the beach, my line in hand, a Sacrata 
boy named Paublo, who later became my boat- 
man, came wading along with a cast-net slung 
over his naked shoulders, stopped, followed my 
line out, and as his bloodshot eyes rested on the 
snappers he innocently asked why I did not 
fish for chem. There are times when the aver- 
age angler finds solace in an appeal to high 
Olympus; whether I did on this occasion, or 
even added to my humiliation by taking Paublo 
into my confidence, is immaterial. My reply 
must have suggested that a doubt dwelt in my 
mind that a gray snapper could be caught, where- 
upon my companion proceeded to initiate me into 
the art. He waded up the beach and with his 
small bait-catcher, a cimeter-like iron barrel hoop, 
cut down a number of sardine-like fishes an inch 
and a half in length, which he called “ hard heads.” 
From his shanty near by, upon which roosted 
three tame asthmatic pelicans, he brought a line 
of a pale blue color of about twenty-eight strands, 
