THE SMALL GAME FISHES OF FLORIDA 



have kept a twelve-feet shark about my boat for half an hour by 

 dropping overboard a sack containing several ancient groupers. 

 It was an interesting sight to see this threatening monster come 

 up out of the azure depths with his staff of three or four remoras 

 and several pilot-fishes. As they hove in sight my boatman 

 would toss over some ' chum ' — aground conch or crayfish — ^and by 

 casting I frequently would hook the pilot-fishes that fought like 

 yellowtails — their distant cousins. 



Off the iN'orth Atlantic occurs a large amber-jack-Uke fish, 

 Seriola eonata, rarely caught with light tackle. The mackerel 

 scad, Quia Quia, is a brave little fish in Florida, and the two-feet 

 saurel (TracJiurus) on the Pacific Coast. The Silver Jack 

 (Caromgus guar a) is two feet long, and many of its tribe are 

 active game fishes of the open sea off many shores. The Permit, or 

 big pompano, is a giant caught rarely on the Florida reef up to 

 iiearly thirty pounds. The little pompano is one of the most 

 beautiful leapers in the kingdom of the sea. I have watched them 

 in the great lagoon of Texas when channel-bass fishing. They 

 leave the water, then when in the air three or four feet they turn, 

 offering their broad sides to the air, and slide away to an extra- 

 ordinary distance. One day three or four landed in my boat ; 

 when a school is alarmed it is a beautiful sight. 



A fine game fish is the robalo or snook (Centropomus) ; there 

 are about fifteen species of them in salt and brackish water. It 

 is fairly common in the sandy lagoons of the Florida reef where 

 I have taken it. In Surinam specimens four feet in length have 

 been caught. There is particularly good sport troUing for the 

 robalo in the mouths of the rivers at San Juan, Porto Rico, and, 

 according to Jordan, anglers take it in the rivers Rio de la Plata, 

 Manati, and the Rio Grande de Arecibo. 



Comparable in a way to the Enghsh bass, is the sea-bass 

 (Oentropristes) of the Korth Atlantic, the common fish of the 

 anglers who go out on special angling steamboats to the banks 

 from New York every day in summer. It ranges down to 

 Florida, Uves in deep water, and is taken up to four pounds on 



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