FISHING 



77 



good. Even the despised mullet is rieh and 

 toothsome. 



The quail shooting is far different from 

 that of the North. Except in the big pine 

 woods, the undergrowth is of such a nature 

 that quail do not lie well. They find it too 

 easy to run ahead of the dog a la California 

 quail. 



One must have a good retriever, one that 

 will "face the music," for the ground all 

 looks alike, and it is almost impossible to 

 mark a dead bird. I may be mistaken, but 

 the Florida quail seems to lack the size, 

 plumpness and juiciness of his grain-fed 

 Northern brother. This is a bad state for 

 dogs. They seem to take every kind of dis- 

 ease and are eaten up by fleas and ticks. I 

 had a setter there last season whose ears 

 were one continuous nest of fleas and flea 

 eggs. I had to anoint him nearly every day 

 to keep his ears from becoming raw. This 

 was in January, when the Northern flea is 

 not much in evidence. Many good dogs, not 

 native bred, are yearly bitten by snakes, and 

 so, on the whole, a visitor ought to bring a 

 dog he can spare and leave his "cracker- 

 jack" at home. 



There are a few turkeys left and some 

 deer, but here again we find a far different 

 animal from the true Northern or "Virginia" 

 deer. I have shot deer in many places, 

 chiefly in Arkansas, but down here one does 

 not see the big, plump fellows with "rock- 

 ing chair" horns. The Florida deer is much 

 like the Florida cow, small and scrawny. 

 They slink through the undergrowth much 

 as a rabbit does. I saw two just the other 

 day, and both together wouldn't make one 

 fair Northern deer. "Good eatin' " in the 

 pine woods is very scarce and it affects all 

 kinds of game. They "drive" chiefly, and I 

 don't wonder, for if a good still hunter 

 could ever get a shot in the tangled under- 

 growth it would be sheer luck. 



As to alligators, once so closely associated 

 with Florida, they are rapidly becoming ex- 

 tinct. Shot, first for protection or glory, and 

 then for their hides, the war on them is now 

 almost unceasing, and the few that are seen 

 by tourists are confined in private ponds. I 

 wonder how long shoes, purses and travel- 

 ing bags will continue to be made of genu- 

 ine (?) alligator hides. 



Last winter the Times-Union had an ar- 

 ticle supposed to refer to Florida fish, head- 

 ed, "Where are the fish going?" While the 

 article was timely, it seemed to deal with 

 ocean fishing and went back to 1885. when 

 thirty to forty thousand barrels of mackerel 

 were thrown away in New York. The 

 Times-Union has only to send a man along 

 the east coast to see where the Florida fish 

 are going. One day I saw in a fish house 

 of a little town the evidences of the work of 

 two boats and four men during one night. 

 I saw one ice box about fifteen feet long, five 

 feet wide, and four feet high completely 



packed with grand bass, trout and king fish. 

 Near this were four barrels packed full. 

 Across the house was another ice box half 

 full, and on the floor two piles of fish that 

 would make an angler sick at heart to see. 

 These fish were all taken in gill-nets. I 

 learn that the State allows gill-nets, but they 

 must be put down in the channel and the fish 

 allowed to go in, if they choose. But, they 

 must not be driven in. Now, I know by 

 actual observation that the law is deliber- 

 ately broken, with full knowledge, every 

 time these fellows go out. They go across 

 the river right in front of private premises, 

 set their nets in the shallow water, and by 

 beating on slats fastened to wading boots, 

 at the same time keeping up an unearthly 

 din on their boats, they scare out the bass 

 and trout that are feeding along the shore. 



This noise is made at any and all hours 

 of the night, disturbing nervous women and 

 sick men. Why some good man or men 

 don't "shoot out their lights" is a mystery 

 to me. The gang would last just one night 

 on any Northern river. 



Pearson's for February hits the case by 

 saying that if the fish of a particular region 

 are all caught, there is no hope that others 

 from surrounding localities will take their 

 place. The exhaustion of a local fishery is 

 not like dipping water out of a bucket, 

 where the vacancy is immediately filled, but 

 it is more like scooping lard out of a keg 

 where there is a space left that remains an 

 empty hole, unoccupied by anything else, for 

 it is a habit of fish to spawn on the ground 

 where they were hatched, and the fish of any 

 particular spawning ground having been de- 

 stroyed, no others will come to take their place. 

 The above is, alas, too true, and an ex- 

 ample is seen to-day in the beautiful Indian 

 River, once noted for its fish. Indian River 

 is a net work of nets, from its mouth to its 

 head, and it is a farce for the hotels along 

 its shores to advertise "good fishing." It is 

 actually amusing to see guests go trolling 

 day after day with no success. The poach- 

 ers can catch more fish in one night than a 

 dozen launches can catch in a month, fishing 

 legitimately. 



Strange to say, I lived there some six 

 months and never heard of an arrest by 

 any sort of a Game Warden, good, bad or 

 indifferent. There is some talk of cutting . 

 more inlets from the ocean into Indian 

 River. If they are cut, of course business 

 at the fish houses will be better. 



I think I know the trolling grounds here. 

 I have a friend who caught three fish in 

 one month, and I caught two while with him. 

 And this in the wonderful Indian River, 

 "Teeming with game fish." They had better 

 cut that out of the railroad folders. 



Nearly every negro in Florida owns a 

 gun of some kind. They shoot at every- 

 thing that moves, lives or has being, except 

 cattle. 



