The Drum 323 
ous method of gaffing, but possibly excusable 
under the circumstances—and dragged it out 
upon the sands, remoras and all, the four attend- 
ants refusing to leave until they were forced off. 
This fish weighed, if my memory serves me rightly, 
about seventy pounds, and was the largest “big 
porgy” ever seen at Garden Key, at least by 
the fishermen I knew. I gave it to the man I 
often fished with. He was not a Tamisio, and I 
fancied he looked at me reproachfully the next 
day when I asked him how it tasted. His reply 
was that it might have been “ fine fishin’, but it 
was mighty tough eatin’.” So my biggest drum 
undoubtedly went to feed the sharks, which were 
the principal scavengers along the key of the 
Gulf. 
Small drums, or “ porgies,” from eight to twelve 
pounds were highly valued and caught in the 
same localities as sheepshead, though in deeper 
water, one of the best places being on the edge of 
a deep channel opposite Sand Key, where “ Long 
John” could soon fill the well of the “ Bull Pup,” 
as he called his old sloop, which went to the bot- 
tom one day in a hurricane. The fishes were 
probably revenged by using her as a retreat until 
the teredos reduced her to dust. 
