TALES OF FISHES 



who had this happen. I know of one gentleman 

 who told me he hooked a fish that he supposed was 

 a barracuda, and while he was fighting this supposed 

 barracuda he was interested in the leaping of a 

 sailfish near his boat. His boatman importuned 

 him to hurry in the barracuda so there would be a 

 chance to go after the leaping sailfish. But it turned 

 out that the sailfish was on his hook. Another 

 angler went out with heavy rod, the great B-Ocean 

 reel, and two big hooks (which is an outfit suitable 

 only for large tuna or swordfish), and this fellow 

 hooked a sailfish which had no chance and was dead 

 in less than ten minutes. A party of anglers were 

 out on the reef, fishing for anything, and they de- 

 cided to take a turn outside where I had been spend- 

 ing days after sailfish. Scarcely had these men left 

 the reef when five sailfish loomed up and all of them, 

 with that perversity and capriciousness which makes 

 fish so incomprehensible, tried to climb on board the 

 boat. One, a heavy fish, did succeed in hooking 

 himself and getting aboard. I could multiply events 

 of this nature, but this is enough to illustrate my 

 point — ^that there is a vast difference between several 

 fishermen out of thousands bringing in several sail- 

 fish in one season and one fisherman deliberately 

 going after sailfish with hght tackle and eventually 

 getting them. 



It is not easy. On the contrary, it is extremely 

 hard. It takes infinite patience, and very much has 

 to be learned that can be learned only by experi- 

 ence. But it is magnificent sport and worth any 

 effort. It makes tarpon-fishing tame by comparison. 

 Tarpon-fishing is easy. Anybody can catch a tar- 



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