THE SILVEE Ki:tfG 



a tarpon ynth the Tuna Club nine-ounce rod and nine-thread line, 

 the latter having a breaking strength of eighteen pounds. This 

 was believed impossible by many, though not by me. 



Mr. Streeter's appearance at Aransas Pass was heralded 

 with some good-natured joking at his having come from the Tuna 

 Club of California to tell old tarpon fighters how to fish. But 

 Mr. Streeter wore the coveted blue button of the club which told 

 that he was one of about sixty men up to that time who had 

 taken a one hundred-pound tuna with rod and reel, and the tuna 

 was, unquestionably, the hardest fish in the world to catch. I 

 am indebted to Mr. F. L. Harding of Philadelphia for a copy 

 of a letter from Mr. Streeter in which his experience is briefly told. 

 The letter originally appeared in the Forest and Stream of Isfew 

 York, and is most interesting angling history, as it marks a 

 revolution in tarpon fishing : 



' I now have for you news of real interest. Yesterday, June 25, the 

 sea calmed down somewhat and I determined to try the experiment of 

 landing a tarpon on nine-ounce rod and nine-thread Une. I lost the first 

 fish on the jump. The second I hooked better ; he carried our skiff across 

 the Pass (Aransas), then out over the South Shoals. Our craft almost filled 

 with water and it was found necessary to beach her. Then I fought the 

 fish at a distance of over eight-hundred feet away out on the outer 

 breakers. My line parted. The time of the strike to losing the fish was 

 fifty minutes. 



' After resting a half an hour, we returned to the jetty, put out in 

 another boat and ere long were hooked up to another tarpon. I managed 

 to keep this fish away from the South Shoals. He made jump after jump 

 in rapid succession, but by careful work I managed to work him over to 

 the beach. But here a new difi&culty awaited us : he refused to enter 

 shoal water. We had no gaff, but I whipped a large shark hook (or rather 

 instructed the boatman to do it) upon a spare tip, thus improvising a light 

 gaff. Forty-five minutes after hooking I had a magnificent fish five feet 

 nine inches in length gUstening in the sunhght at the boatside. The rod 

 was an ironwood of standard nine-ounce weight and nine-strand line. 



' I attach great credit to my guide, Samuel T. Bromley, few if any, 

 would have stood by me under such strenuous conditions. 



' Last evening a few of the gentlemen present organized the Aransas 

 Pass Tarpon Club. To qualify, members must catch unaided a tarpon 

 not less than four feet six inches in length on nine-ounce rod and nine- 



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