322 Big Game Fishes 
it with my light rod, and then I had waded out, 
knee-deep, on to a little shoal which projected into 
the channel, from which vantage-ground, the 
home of the mullet, I played my fish and was 
played. I would gain ten or twenty feet, then 
lose it, then by turning the fish inshore and 
wading rapidly, I would regain the lost line. And 
so, giving and taking, the contest went on, every 
now and then the fish making a desperate rush; 
and the closer in I reeled it the more savage 
became its plays. It had one singular movement 
which appeared to be a rapid dive in a half-circle, 
bearing away on the line with all its power, then 
evidently turning suddenly, which gave a slack 
line for a second as it ran toward me, which was 
perhaps a trick to gain line. But I foiled it by 
more than ordinary good luck, all the time being 
carried slowly up the channel, but now moving 
gradually in so that I at last reeled the fish up 
the steep channel slope on to the shoal and had it 
in three feet of water, where it circled me several 
times as I slowly and carefully backed inshore. 
By this time one of the boatmen had appeared 
and now waded out; and, as well wearied with my 
bare-headed fight under a terrific sun, I brought 
the fish in, he grained it —a savage and barbar- 
