AFEICA AIJTD AUSTEALIA 



one of wliicli I caught of such size that he had a conToy of twO' 

 or three remoras that undoubtedly thought it was a shark. The 

 Sydney schnapper also resembles one of the red snappers of 

 Florida, and is taken in the Gulf of Mexico in just about the same 

 manner. He looks Like the schnapper and is just as red, but 

 has not the large hump of the Austrahan red bream. The anglers 

 go offshore at night at times and, according to Mr. Aflalo, in 

 whose delightful Salt of my Life I find the account of his own 

 experience, have a sort of tournament. The fishing is at Botany 

 Bay, beginning at daybreak, about a mile from shore. Each 

 angler has a station, chalked off on deck, and at the word the- 

 secretary fires a pistol and the sport is on, the red schnappers 

 beginning to come in just as I have hauled up the red snapper 

 from the deep holes of the Gulf of Mexico a few nules off East 

 Key. The same hand-line tackle is employed, rods being no 

 aid in such sport, though the bass anglers of iN^ew York, who go 

 out in steamers to the banks off Sandy Hook, all use rods. 

 The Australian schnappers run up to five or six pounds and 

 are hard fighters. Botany Bay affords good sea angling for black 

 bream and various other fishes. There is also rock fishing for 

 the local grouper, which comes after various trigger fish and 

 others, and is large and strong. Then there is trumpeter fishing^ 

 at Hobart and a giant perch in the mouth of Fitzroy Eiver, one 

 of the interesting estuaries of Queensland, a fish requiring in- 

 finite patience to catch, I judge, as Aflalo drops into poetry while 

 angUng for it and quotes : 



' I am waiting, I am waiting 

 Just to tell thee how I love thee.' 



He waited a week or more, then as he was about to sail, his 

 boatman or guide caught a perch, a thirty pounder, and sent it 

 aboard. I had the same experience on the St. Lawrence. After 

 fishing for weeks I sailed away down the Lachine rapids. As 

 we left the pier some one ran down to the shore and held up a 

 forty or fifty pound muscallunge which a lucky angler had just 

 brought in. Such are the vagaries of the angler's Ufe. 



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