Giant Fish of Florida 
strength against that of the fish. Your reel carries 200 yards 
of line, but it is rarely that half of that length is required. 
Most tarpon fishers bring their fish to the gaff from the boat, 
but it is far more sportsmanlike to beach them, as they need 
not then be destroyed. 
When this lady foul-hooked the whip ray, it towed her 
boat about for quite half an hour. She then got rather tired 
and handed her rod to her husband, who, in the course of 
another hour’s hard fight, could do no more than raise the 
brute to the top of the water fully thirty yards away from his 
boat. He then sent along to the man with the harpoon to help 
him, and next time the ray came to the surface the harpooner 
had it fast, and it was triumphantly towed ashore by a remark- 
able procession of boats. Its estimated weight was 500 lb., 
and this I should regard as not far wide of the mark. 
85 
