THE GAME FISHES OP THE WOELD 



"backs out of water, while for ten feet outside of that, the water 

 ■was black with the sardines and rapidly beconaing red, due to 

 the carnage. We hauled the dinghy on the beach, and I waded 

 into the mass to catch some of the jacks. The school was 

 •evidently made up of several thousand, and they would dash 

 into the sardines with such force that they went completely 

 through them, and high and dry on the sands where my man 

 ■caught them by the tail and threw them up higher. 



The sardines paid no attention to me ; fear of a deadly type 

 had seized them, and they merely hugged the shore and went 

 down, as the fierce living tempest charged into them, mowing 

 them down, killing from a mere blood lust. 



The market fishermen wanted jacks, so we entered into this 

 battle, and as the big fish swarmed about my legs, striking me, 

 1 caught them by the tail and tossed them out onto the sands, 

 that were soon a writhing mass, most of them having gone 

 ashore of their own volition. For twenty minutes or half an 

 Tiour this wonderful rush and pandemonium continued ; then 

 the jacks drew off, like an army, and left a long Une of blood 

 along the sands, and dead and maimed sardines to teU the story, 

 upon which guUs and brown pelicans and man-of-war birds 

 "began to feed. 



Either with a hand-line or rod and reel, the jack or crevall^, 

 Caranx hippos, will afford a remarkable illustration of strength, 

 and it should be taken with the rod trolling, or by casting with 

 live bait. The nine-ounce rod of the Tuna Club description is 

 ■eminently adapted to the occasion ; and few, if any fishes of the 

 sea make a better struggle for freedom. In six or seven years, 

 Tvinter and summer, on the outer Florida reef, where my father, 

 an army officer, was stationed, years ago, I had many a bout 

 "with those splendid fishes, that gave no quarter, nor did they 

 ask it, but fought to the finish. 



The jacks of the crevall6 type are extremely common in 

 nearly aU tropic and semi-tropic seas, though their place appears 

 to be taken in California (so far as the angler is concerned) by 



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