Giant Fish of Florida 
There will no doubt be disparaging anglers who despair 
of tarpon fishing as a sport when they read my frank 
admission that it calls for little special knowledge beyond a 
useful husbanding of one’s strength that can be acquired only 
with practice. At the same time, attention to the business in 
hand will often save many little inconveniences, such as 
getting your finger broken by the reel handle, or cut through 
by quick-running slack line. 
In thus discounting the skill at present necessary to the 
killing of tarpon, I do not overlook the fact that this state 
of things will not in all probability continue indefinitely, since 
there are already signs that the tarpon may become both 
scarcer and better educated as the sport gains more ad- 
herents ; nor is it other than probable that we do not yet 
know the best methods of catching this splendid fish. In 
Boca Grand Pass, for instance, we fish for tarpon with a strip 
of mullet used close to the bottom. In other places where 
the sport is followed they use a whole mullet near the surface. 
The probability is that we know no more of the life history 
and habits of the tarpon than our fathers knew of the salmon 
forty years ago. It is when greater art is called for in the 
capture of the scarcer and more wary fish that the more 
intelligent guides and sportsmen will inevitably score in a 
measure that, it must be confessed, is not always the reward 
of superior intelligence to-day. 
As to season, the most agreeable time for tarpon fishing 
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