V 



THE BAIT 



The bait invariably^ or almost invariably, used at 

 Boca Grande is a strip of mullet measuring from 

 four to six inches, according to the fancy of the 

 guide who cuts it. It is about the crudest lure I 

 ever saw palmed off on so fine a fish. Infinitely 

 more trouble is taken at home in baiting a hook for 

 a six-inch roach. Even in our seas no bass or 

 whitincr would barter its freedom for such a bait. 

 True, in Cornwall we use a similar strip of pil- 

 chard, or chad, for pollack, but the hook is much 

 smaller and is buried in the bait. In tarpon-fishing 

 it is most conspicuous. 



Yet so long as tarpon continue to take an 

 interest in a fraud so patent as hardly to merit the 

 name of treachery, there is no need to try anything 

 else. Mr Turner's educated tarpon, which have 

 gathered the fruits of adversity, and dread every 

 hook after one prick, have yet to visit Boca Grande. 

 At present the glorious tarpon dashes at the silver 

 strip of mullet wobbling in the bright water as if 

 there were no such thing as fishermen within 

 miles. Perhaps, for all we know, this silly fish may 

 even take the tin gleam of the hook for part of the 

 mullet's skin. 



Every morning the mullet, six for each fisher- 

 man, are purchased at ten cents apiece from one of 

 the Spanish colony settled on an island near Useppa, 



il8 



