CHAPTER X 
THE BLUEFISH 
“ Fisherman, Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. 
Master. Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the 
little ones.” — Pericles. 
Nor far from the isle of Patience, in Rhode 
Island waters, an old longshoreman and fisherman 
once informed me that he had taken one hundred 
and forty “horse-mackerel” in a single day. In 
Georgia at the mouth of the St. Mary’s not far 
from Dungeness, my sable boatman told me of 
the delights of “skipjack” fishing in the proper 
season. The retired New Bedford whaler, who 
fishes near there, will show you a rod bent by 
“snappers,” and the Jamaica Bay angler esteems 
himself in great good luck when he makes a 
catch of “skip mackerel.” I offended the Pa- 
tience Island fishermen by intimating that one 
horse-mackerel a season would be considered a 
good catch by some people, and then he produced 
the game. It was a bluefish. So, in Georgia, the 
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