GULP STREAM FISHING 



nobody seems to take the trouble to get what might 

 be proper bait for sailfish. Mullet is an easy bait 

 to get and commands just as high a price as any- 

 thing else, which, as a matter of fact, is highway 

 robbery. With a bait like a ballyhoo or a shiner 

 I could get ten bites to one with mullet. 



We trolled along at slow speed. The air was 

 cool, the sun pleasant, the sea beautiful, and this 

 was the time to sit back and enjoy a sense of free- 

 dom and great space of the ocean, and watch for 

 leaping fish or whatever might attract the eye. 



Here and there we passed a strange jellyfish, the 

 like of which I had never before seen. It was about 

 as large as a good-sized cantaloup, and pale, clear 

 yellow all over one end and down through the middle, 

 and then commenced a dark red fringe which had 

 a waving motion. Inside this fringe was a scal- 

 loped circular appendage that had a sucking motion, 

 which must have propelled it through the water, 

 and it made quite fair progress. Around every one 

 of these strange jellyfish was a little school of tiny 

 minnows, as clear-colored as crystals. These all 

 swam on in the same direction as the drift of the 

 Gulf Stream. 



When we are fishing for sailfish everything that 

 strikes we take to be a sailfish until we find out it 

 is something else. They are inconsistent and queer 

 fish. Sometimes they will rush a bait, at other 

 times they will tug at it and then chew at it, and 

 then they will tap it with their bills. I think I 

 have demonstrated that they are about the hard- 

 est fish to hook that swims, and also on light tackle 

 they are one of the gamest and most thrilling. 



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