FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 143 



this is open to doubt. It will be noticed that five 

 of them exceeded 100 lbs., one being the best fish 

 of the year. Now, Mr Vom Hofe may perhaps 

 have reason to think that big tarpon feed head 

 downwards, routing among the shingle and coral 

 for their food. That such is the case is indicated 

 indeed by the frequency with which the heavier 

 fish are hooked in the nostrils. Therefore by fish- 

 ing deeper than the rest of us, he may perhaps have 

 caught the greater proportion of big fish. At the 

 same time, it is not to be denied that fishing deep 

 carries the penalty of hooking other fish, of which 

 he caught considerably more than his share. 



Luck occasionally takes strange shapes. A 

 friend of mine, also visiting Boca Grande for the 

 first time in 1906, caught on his first (and only) day 

 in the Pass a handsome fish of 120 lbs. Then 

 followed several days of stormy weather, during 

 which the Pass was deserted. Indeed, before we 

 got out again, and while we were putting in the 

 time catching small fish near Useppa, he managed, 

 while wadinor in the shallows to get fiddler-crabs 



o o 



for bait, to cut the instep of his foot so severely on 

 a broken oyster-shell as narrowly to escape lockjaw. 

 That was the end of his fishing, for he had to return 

 North for surgical aid, but his ill-luck only made it 

 the more lucky that he should have had that one 

 success. An analogous case was remembered by 

 those who had been at Useppa before, that of a 

 sportsman from England catching a fish of 140 

 lbs. on his first day and finding, on his return to 

 the inn, a cablegram demanding his immediate 

 return home on account of illness. 



Luck, as has already been said, is negative as 



