84 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



an experience, this, out of my own log. The reel 

 is furnished with diabolical brakes and drags, 

 against which few fish but a tarpon could put up 

 the fight it does. The line is tested almost to the 

 breaking strength of a runaway rogue elephant. 

 The hook, very carefully tempered, is soldered to 

 a snell of chain and piano-wire that would hold a 

 Cunarder at her moorings. In the hands of even 

 a novice, such a combination is a formidable one 

 to fight against. Used with such skill as there is 

 room for — not, as I shall endeavour to demonstrate, 

 a very high degree — it is well-nigh irresistible. 



Not every tarpon that "strikes" is hooked or 

 landed, for the mouth of this great fish has adam- 

 antine corners that no hook can hold. As these 

 monsters browse, head downwards, on the coral- 

 beds at the bottom of the Pass, they are some- 

 times foul-hooked in the nostrils, but, although the 

 tarpon has the nez retrousse of all the herrings, its 

 nostril is a small target to hit forty feet below you, 

 and, even if struck there, the hook will soon relax 

 its hold unless the line be kept absolutely taut. 

 Once the point and barb are well home in one of 

 the few vulnerable corners of the head, once the 

 splendid fish has made its first maddened jump in 

 vain, failing to fling back the hook in the dejected 

 angler's face, there is just one excuse, one and no 

 more, for not getting it exhausted to the boat or 

 beach according to local custom. The one excuse 

 is when a large shark joins in the game and 

 engages in a triangular duel, of which more will be 

 said later. As for the tackle breaking-, there is, 

 with the exercise of ordinary care, very little 

 chance of it. It is true that the lines supplied in 



