THE GAME FISHES OP THE WORLD 



ing the bait, but always in the most prosaic and dignified fashion. 

 This would occur many times, until finally, in ten or fifteen minutes, 

 the barracuda seemed to have satisfied its curiosity, or to have 

 played with the terrified lure to its satisfaction, when it would 

 suddenly grip it with its wolf -like teeth by the end of the tail, and 

 slowly rise from the bottom. During this performance there were 

 no sudden or violent motions. The barracuda appeared and 

 acted like an automaton, moving slowly off. Then it shifted the 

 fish about, head down, as a snake wiU a frog, and gradually it 

 would disappear, the barracuda moving perhaps eight or ten 

 feet during this time. 



I was always a spectator of this tragedy, gradually creeping 

 up, reefing in, so that by the time the tail of the shad disappeared 

 down the mouth of this muscaUunge of the sea, I had a taut Une 

 and struck. Straight, like an arrow from the bow, the fish would 

 dash away to the shrill barcarole of the reel, then when the 

 resilient rod held it, circling round me, bearing off in a gallant 

 fashion to continue the fight until I had backed into the shore 

 of Pearl Key which I often used as a base. I never saw a thirty 

 or forty pounder in the shallows, but through the reef a mysterious 

 blue artery-Uke channel cut its way, and here, or on the edges, 

 the big barracuda poised, and was lured by troUing, or by the 

 method I have suggested, which was a brazen appeal to the 

 curiosity of the fish. 



The Seminole would go out in his light dinghy, armed with 

 his grains, a small two-pronged, barbed spear, which fitted with 

 a socket into a long slender, bending yellow pine pole at least 

 ten or twelve feet in length. To the grains was attached a strong 

 cod-line of one hundred feet which led up and was held in the 

 hand. I took my seat in the bow, facing the stern, ' a looker on 

 in Venice,' while he tossed over the line, about four feet long, 

 to which was fastened a white rag. With the grains in his right 

 hand, the barracuda hunter then began to scull the boat 

 silently along, there being a row-lock astern for that purpose. 



The barracuda is doubtless possessed of courage and curiosity, 

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