246 Big Game Fishes 
in ten minutes after reaching the Pass I was 
playing my first Texas tarpon; and of six boats 
which made up the party, all had fish or strikes 
soon after reaching the ground. I fished with a 
rod eight and a half feet long, a twenty-one cutty- 
hunk line, using a large tuna reel of Edwin vom 
Hofe make, containing six hundred feet of line, a 
Van Vleck hook with a three-foot phosphor- 
bronzed wire leader, or snell, the boatman doub- 
ling the line for about a foot beyond this. The 
bait was a live mullet not over four inches in 
length, hooked through the lips, and with thirty 
feet of line out I began fishing. 
My boatman rowed slowly along the jetty, not 
ten feet distant, where the water was shallow. 
The tide was slack, the water smooth in the 
channel, but breaking heavily on either side. 
That tarpons were plentiful was evident, as every 
few minutes the back of one would be seen; and 
as the boatman rowed out beyond the jetty I had 
my first strike, and with the best of luck hooked 
my fish. Up into the air four or five feet went a 
splendid mass of molten silver, to fall with a 
crash, only to go up again, this time tossing the 
bait at me with such force that it fell on the 
gunwale. As the fish reached the surface, it 
