Giant Fish of Florida 
CHANNEL Bass (Scienops ocellatus) AND BLACK GROUPER 
(Garrupa nigrata) 
The channel bass, or red drum, is a bronze fish that runs 
up to 40 or 50 lb. weight, and gives good sport on a rod 
in the surf. So many of the smaller sporting fish are caught in 
the surf on the Florida coast, that I have often wondered 
whether this is a merely local habit, due to their dread 
of the sharks outside, or whether indeed sea-fishermen at 
home neglect the more productive surf, in their haste to 
fish the extreme end of a long pier or the deeper waters 
attainable in boats, 
The black grouper is a great trouble to the tarpon fisher, 
for on some days it seizes bait after bait, and at once darts into 
some convenient crevice in the coral. The puzzled angler 
strikes again and again, and each time finds himself hitched 
into the rock, which often entails the loss of all his tackle with 
many feet of line. Only the old hand knows the real source 
of the trouble and promptly changes his ground, but as those 
fish are more or less numerous all through the pass, the real 
secret of avoiding them is to fish a few feet higher. 
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