SAILFISH 



This one thing, then, I believe I have proved to 

 myself — that the sailfish is the gamest, the most 

 beautiful and spectacular, and the hardest fish to 

 catch on light tackle, just as his brother, the Pacific 

 swordfish, is the grandest fish to take on the heaviest 

 of tackle. 



Long Key, indeed, has its charm. Most all the 

 anglers who visit there go back again. Only the 

 queer ones — and there are many — who want three 

 kinds of boats, and nine kinds of bait, and a deep- 

 sea diver for a boatman, and tackle that cannot be 

 broken, and smooth, calm seas always, and five 

 hundred pounds of fish a day — only that kind 

 complain of Long Key and kick — and yet go back 

 again! 



Sailfish will draw more and finer anglers down to 

 the white strip of color that shines white all day 

 under a white sun and the same all night under 

 white stars. But it is not alone the fish that draws 

 real sportsmen to a place and makes them love it 

 and profit by their return. It is the spirit of the 

 place — ^the mystery, like that of the little hermit- 

 crab, which crawls over the coral sand in his stolen 

 shell, and keeps to his lonely course, and loves his 

 life so well — sunshine, which is best of all for men; 

 and the wind in the waving palms; and the lonely, 

 wandering coast with the eternal moan out on the 

 reefs, the sweet, fresh tang, the clear, antiseptic 

 breath of salt, and always by the glowing, hot, 

 colorful day or by the soft dark night with its 

 shadows and whisperings on the beach, that signifi- 

 cant presence — the sense of something vaster than 

 the heaving sea. 



85 



