THE SMALL GAME FISHES OF FLOEIDA 



the big lagoon, passing beds of branch coral which stretched 

 away for miles, entered a little five-foot channel through the 

 reef, if the sea was low, and anchored in about fifteen or twenty- 

 feet of water. Here was a wealth of game. We were fishing 

 for yeUowtails, but caught almost everything ; now a flat high 

 angel-fish, or a richly-coloured Chaetodon, ablaze with blues 

 and yeUows — a veritable butterfly of the sea. Then would 

 come a yeUowtail, next a porcupine fish covered with spines, 

 which expanded Uke a balloon the moment it reached the surface 

 and floated away upon it. Then a moray, spotted like a tiger, 

 coiling Kke a snake. Most of these might be considered vermin, 

 but some are true game flshes, particularly some of the so-called 

 angel and parrot-fishes. Of the former I would give the palm 

 to one called the black angel-fish, Pomacanthus ; an extraor- 

 dinary creature, one of a score of scaled angels. In shape it is 

 high or elevated, its extraordinary fin or fleshy hump making it 

 still higher. The general colour is gray, with black or dark 

 spots ; the mouth a vivid white. 



The young are striped with white bars ; but the older they 

 grow the grayer they become. The large ones are two feet 

 long and will average six or eight pounds. The very shape of 

 the fish is suggestive of quaUties of resistance, and the suggestion 

 is not imaginary. The mouth of the angel-fish is so small that 

 an extremely small but very strong hook is required ; a number 

 six-thread linen Une, a short leader or trace of very fine copper 

 wire, and no sinker. The rod should be a stout eight-ounce split 

 bamboo cane, or greenheart, about seven or eight feet long. 

 With this and crayfish bait you are equipped. You might fish 

 for them a year with a yellowtail hook and never hook them 

 because they cannot take it in, or with a delicate hook, as they 

 bite it off with their ivory-like teeth. 



In the home of the angel-fish there are countless other fishes 

 quicker of motion, and the chances are that you wiU catch 

 many grunts and yeUowtails before the dignified, slow-moving 

 black angel takes the lure. So you cast, and as the throng rises, 



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