Aug. 4, igoo.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
89 
Unless since last summer some one has raised Mr. 
Ed vom Hofe's record of 210 pounds by more than 13 
pounds, Dr. Howe stands to-day as the champion tar- 
pon fisherman of the world; and if Mr. vom Hofe feels 
aggrieved there is only one thing for him to do, viz., go 
down to Tampico and fish at the mouth of the river op- 
posite the city until he secures a still bigger fish. Per- 
haps he can get one which the Doctor left behind, and 
which he maintains must have been the great-grand- 
mother of the big one he caught. As he tells the 
story, he was fishing at the usual place, when he got a 
tremendous strike, the fish taking out most of his line 
and towing the boat up the branch river at a great rate. 
As it did not jump, he assumed that it could not be a 
tarpon, but probably an immense gar; so after he had 
been carried up stream far enough to suit him. and after 
winding up all but 20 yards of line, he concluded to break 
the hook and get loose. This he did, but just as he 
pulled out came the head of a tremendous tarpon — as 
big as the head of a sow, the Doctor says. 
He has been clubbing himself ever since because of his 
impatience. 
The record tarpon is now being mounted, and will 
be exhibited for a while in Mexico City. The photo 
gives one a good comparative idea of its size, for the 
smaller fish in the picture is a good average tarpon of 
5 feet 6 inches in length. This picture was evidently 
taken by one of the boatmen, the two doctors being in 
the nhotograph. each beside his own fish. 
While the Doctor was struggling with his prize Jose 
hooked one about as big, but it broke the rod — the same 
one that I smashed, and which the Doctor had mended 
by shortening. 
The grand total catch for the three of us. as stated ift 
Dr. Howe's affidavit, was fort3'-seven tarpon and 130 
other fi.sh, not counting the small fish landed on two or 
three occasions upon light tackle. My share of this 
catch taken in eleven days was twenty-four tarpon, fifty- 
nine jackfish and two jewfish. 
As it is probable that some tarpon cranks of the 
United states will want to go to Tampico to try the 
fishing, I shall close this already too lengthy article 
with a few pointers which will certainly be of great use 
to them, if they make the trip. 
Do not stop at Tampico, because the hotel there is 
unsanitary and the food is bad; but go to La Barra and 
either live in a private car run down to the extreme end 
of the railroad or stop with Guillermo P. Pollock, 
who keeps a restaurant there. He promised us to take 
good care of tarpon fishermen, furnishing them with 
good board and clean beds for $2.50 a day in Mexican 
currency, or about $r.20 in American money. 
Hire your boats at Tampico. They will cost 50 cents 
a day, or perhaps more, because at present there are 
only half a dozen skiffs available. 
Get your mullet from the Philippino fiisherman, who 
speaks English, and who lives close to the river near 
the bridge at Tampico. Arrange with him to supply 
each man in the party with fifty mullet per day, and have 
him deliver them at La Barra by the first train in the 
morning. From 40 to 50 cents per man per day would 
satisfy his ambition to the utmost. He is a pretty re- 
liable fellow, much more so than the Mexicans. 
Arrange to have for each sportsman a stout wooden 
chair, with a solid bottom, and a cushion with each 
chair. The said cushion is just the thing to form a ful- 
crum for the butt of the rod in handling a fish, the said 
butt being placed between cushion and chair. 
Write in advance to Mr. G. P. Pollock at La Barra, 
Tampico, Mexico, stating the date of arrival, number in 
party._ probable length of stay, etc., and ask him to 
make in advance of your arrival all the necessary arrange- 
ments for boats, boatmen, bait and chairs, and to have 
everything ready for an early start the first morning. 
Take plenty of tackle of all kinds, as none worth 
mentioning can be bought at Tampico. 
Drink no water that has not been boiled, unless you 
want to risk getting malaria. 
Avoid all beer and liquors sold in Mexican bars. If 
you must have stimulants, take them with you from the 
States. 
Insist on your boatman taking an extra oar and an 
extra rowlock in each boat, and that all rowlocks be 
tied on. See also that there is always a bailing dish in 
the boat. Each boat should be provided with a good gaff 
hook, and each sportsman should have a revolver in his 
boat, so that when far from land he can kill large fish 
before taking them aboard. 
Make a deal with your boatmen to the effect that if 
they stay by you from start to finish you will present 
each of them with 25 cents per day extra for each day 
of your stay. 
Insist that they sleep at La Barra instead of at 
Tampico. Otherwise they may fail to show up in the 
morning Avhen you are ready to start. 
The best boatmen are Aousencia Ruiz, Kenaro Cruiz, 
nicknamed Cayote and Macho. 
Carry a jug of boiled water and a drinking cup in 
each boat. » 
Have Mr. Pollock buy for you dairy milk in covered 
bottles. It is about the only good thing that can be 
purchased at Tampico, and it has to be ordered specially. 
There will be no need for basket lunches, because you 
can readily get back to La Barra every day at noon, 
unless you go up toward Tampico, in which case the 
said basket lunches will be required. 
Do all your fishing during the months of December, 
January, February and March. There are plenty of 
tarpon in the river in April, and possibly all the year 
round, but there is danger of taking malarial fever or 
something worse, if one stays after the hot weather sets 
in. Probably there is good fishing during the latter 
half of November, and if the weather be cool then it 
would be safe enough to go there. 
As none of the boatmen understand English, except 
the toothless one who is afraid of the water (and his 
knowledge of the language is very limited), the following 
little vocabulary may be of use: 
Boat. 
Current. 
Shark. 
Porpoise. 
Oar. 
Rod, 
Line. 
Hook. 
Jetty. 
North. 
.South, 
East. 
West. 
Bote. 
Corriente. 
Tiveron. 
Tonina. 
Rerno. 
Cana. 
Hilo. 
Anzuelo, 
Muelle. 
Norte. 
Sur, Sud. 
Oriente. 
Poniente. 
Boh-tay. 
Corry-en-ta>'i 
Teevare-own. 
To-nee-nah. 
Ray-mo. 
Can-yah. 
E61-oh. 
An-swale-oh. 
Moo-el-yeh. 
Nor-tay. 
Soor, sood. 
Oary-6n-tay. 
Pony-en-tay, 
In conchision let me recommend all American tarpon 
fishermen who can spare the time to tr}' the winter fish- 
ing at Tampico. To any one desirous of going there I 
shall be pleased to furnish any information that I can, or 
to answer any questions propounded. M}^ permanent ad- 
dress is Gibraltar Building, Kansas City, Mo. 
In concluding these few words of advice to my brother 
tarpon fishermen, I can do no better than to suggest to 
them the standard fishing toast of Dr. Howe, viz., 
"When you get a bite, pull." J. A. L. Waddell. 
New England Angling. 
BosTOxV, July 28.— Af N'&hmt and Nantasket fishing 
parties are of frequent occurrence. .Boston merchants 
and business men make up fishing parties, and are gone 
for the day. They report great fun. Bluefishing has 
not been very satisfactory ofl^ the Cape, and around Buz- 
zards Bay. It is thought that the hot weather has been 
unfavorable. Bass fishing has been good in some of the 
Plymouth ponds, and Boston fishermen have been down 
there. ■ \ 
Hot and dry weather Hias prevailed at some of the 
more northerly and easterly of the salmon rivers, and the 
salmon have refused to rise. There has existed all the 
season a w^et weather belt, starting not far from the sea 
coast and running about northwest over Maine and the 
edge of Canada. Within this belt there has been a great 
deal of rain for two months. It includes the Aroostook 
waters, Moosehead, the Rangeleys and the Megantic Re- 
serve, and the fishing has been good for both trout and 
salmon. North and east of this belt the weather has 
been very dry, and the rivers low. Late Nova Scotia 
reports say that the salmon rivers are very low and the 
fishing poor. The Boston party already noted in Forest 
AND Stream that went to Port Medway River found 
very low water, with hot weather. The salmon declined 
to rise, although the fishermen could see them in great 
numbers. The sportsmen returned bring back the re- 
port that the salmon in Port Medway are all that they 
have been represented, both as to numbers and size, but 
they will not rise when the weather is hot and the water 
very Ipw. The same complaint comes from northern 
Canadian and New Brunswick waters. 
July 30.-— The reservoirs about here are being tried for 
bass and pickerel. It requires permits to fish these muni- 
cipal reservoirs, which have generally been stocked at the 
State's expense, but these permits come through being 
on the right side of municipal officials. Lucky is the man 
who gets a permit. Lake Messapog, at Sharon, is giving 
some good fishing results to those who have the patience 
and know how. Mr. Felix Tausig fished there Friday 
with a result of about forty. About half were white 
perch, the balance pickerel and bass. Boston merchants 
frequently distribute their catches among their business 
friends, and the wholesale grocery trade got the most of 
Mr. Tausig' s fish. 
Recent Moosehead report-s say that the late rains have 
greatly benefited the fly-fishing, which is excellent. Al- 
most every fisherman of any skill brings in a good catch. 
Mr. George Linder, of Boston, a Moosehead angler for 
inany seasons, and an expert with thie fly, who never fishes 
in any other way, is at his cotiage. Northwest Carry, with 
the Misses Linder. Thev are having the best of sport. 
G. A. Worth and T. J. O'Donohue, of New York, took 
fifty trout the other day on a trip to Brassua Lake. They 
weighed from i to iH pounds. Reports of great fly-fish- 
ing also come from Kennebago. Col. Eugene Atwood, of 
Stonington, Conn., took a trout of pounds fishing 
from the wharf the other evening. Henry M. Ricker, of 
Boston, fishing at Billy Soule's, landed twenty-seven 
trout in one afternoon recently, the string weighing 14^^ 
pounds, and on another afternoon thirty-two trout, weigh- 
ing 25 pounds. At Eustis and in the Dead River and 
Seven Pond regions there are many fishermen, and they 
write their friends great accounts of sport. At Eustis, G. 
A. Gibson, of Boston, seems to be pretty high line, with 
a record of three fish weighing 5^/2, 6% and pounds. 
Mr. Gibson tells his friends that he has killed two bears 
this trip and has the toes of another. Well, those toes are 
suspicious. Did he shoot his bears from some trapper's 
traps? At Haines' Landing the biggest fish recently taken 
was a salmon of 7^4 pounds, the catch of the Wetherel 
party, of Boston. Mr. W. D. Barnes has taken a salmon 
of 4 pounds, at the Alooselucmaguntic House. Mrs. S. 
R. Knight has recently taken a salmon of 4}^ pounds at 
the same place. Special. 
Long; Island. 
Sayville, Long Island. July 28.— Bluefish are now in 
the Great South Bay in large quantities. A great number 
have been caught by chumming at the cinders near the 
old fish house and in the west channel near Nichol's 
Island. One boat on Saturday caught 116 good-si-'ed bay 
fish. E. R. W. 
English. 
Tarpon . 
Tack-fish. 
Tew-fish. 
IVTullet. 
Small. 
3.1; 
Spanish, 
Savalo. 
Jurel. 
Chiema. 
Robalo, 
Lisa. 
Chicp. 
Pronunciation. 
Sah-val-oh. 
Hoo'rell. 
Chee-air-nah. 
Eo-hahl-oh. 
Lee-sah. 
Chee-kohi 
Cr4hii>dBr! 
From Bay Shore comes the story of a 200-pound shark 
caught by a bluefish party Sunday afternoon. It is said 
to have been the second greatest shark ever taken in Great 
South Bay. The Bav Shore ^ark exploit is regarded 
as a praiseworthy effort for a summer hotel sensation, 
but probably circumsoect inn keeoers on the Atlantic 
coa.st will not emulate it. The record of the biggest shark 
cauQfht off the pier is not one to be hankered after by land- 
lords who advertise good bathing. The sea serpent is an 
innocent and harmless creature in comparison with a 
shark in bathing waters. The sea serpent is always 
taken with so much salt that no one ever stays out of the 
water because of it; but the shark is actually believed 
in, and every shark that h Ug enough is in popular esti' 
mation a man-eater, 
New Btttnswicfc Fishingf Privileges. 
Chatham, N. B., July 26. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your correspondent, Special, whose letter from Boston 
in your paper of the 21st is entitled "Canadian Fishmg 
Licenses," conveys the impression that it is Canadian 
rather than Provmcial laws which regulate the exercise 
of angling privileges in the different parts of Canada. 
Perhaps his treatment of the subject is natural, inasmuch 
as visiting anglers, sportsmen and tourists do not, to any 
extent, distinguish between the Canadian (Federal) and 
the local (Provincial) authorities. 
All who write of such matters, however, would do well 
to remember that the Canadian Government has nothing 
whatever to do with game or angling licenses in any 
Province of the Dominion. The licensing power, in the 
matters of hunting and angling, is vested exclusively in 
the Government of each Province within its own 
boundaries. 
Instead, therefore, of attributing to "Canadian Laws" 
annoyances to which visitors from the United States may 
be subjected by some of the petty, vexatious license en- 
actments of certain Provincial authorities, it would be 
more fair as well as more intelligible if writers would 
use the terms Ontario, Quebec or Nova Scotia, as the 
case might be. 
My troubling you in connection with this matter just 
now is principally because I received a letter a day or 
two since from the general passenger agent of one of our 
big Canadian railways, in which he said that a well- 
known sportsmen's paper of the United States had an- 
nounced that license fees for angling were exacted in 
New Brunswick. I was glad to be in a position to assure 
my correspondent that the announcement referred to was 
entirely incorrect, and that neither residents, non-resi- 
dents, British subjects nor aliens were required to take 
out licenses for angling in this Province. It is different 
in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. 
With the single exception of hunting for moose and 
caribou, the same conditions prevail in regard to all game 
birds and animals in all the counties of New Brunswick 
with the single exception of Westmoreland, which borders 
on the Province of Nova Scotia, and the exception was 
created at the last session of the New Brunswick Legis- 
lature at the instance of Nova Scotia parties who desired 
to have uniformity in the law, so that border poaching 
might be stamped out. 
It will, therefore, be seen that New Brunswick is not 
only the best angling and hunting territory of eastern 
America, but also that the policy of its Government is to 
treat visiting anglers and sportsmen with the greatest 
liberality and to protect them against annoying restric- 
tions when they come here to enjoy the sport afforded in 
our forests and rivers. D. G. Smith. 
Fishery Commissioner for the Province of New Bruns- 
wick. , 
Fishin^f on the Jersey Coast. 
ASBURY Park, N. J., July 28.— The axiom that "no 
news is good news" is reversed in relation to my not 
having a letter in Forest and Stream the past two weeks. 
The plain facts are there has been but little to write of. 
Bass_ have gone off somewhere in the sulks; kingfish are 
not in evidence, and nothing doing but an occasional 
plaice. The promised and much hoped for easterly blow 
has not materialized, and the fraternity is walled about 
in gloom. We did have a handful of wind from the east 
on Thursday, and as soon as the sea chopped up five bass 
were taken, ranging from 7 to 21 pounds. It only more 
firmly confirms the well-established fact that we must 
have east winds to have bass and kingfishing. Barnegat. 
however, is furnishing good sport, some fine catches of 
bass having been made by those who have the "how" and 
"\yhere" under their hats. Weakfishing is also good, but I 
will repeat what I have so often said — to get good fish go 
at night and fish outside the channels. I well know that 
there are many who will challenge the above, but twenty 
years' experience and experiments have taught me some 
things and the "fish outside the channel at flood tide" is 
one of them. Leonard Hulit. 
Protective Leagfue of Salt Water Fishermeo. 
New York, July 27.— At a regular meeting of the Pro- 
tective League of Salt Water Fishermen, held at their 
rooms, 106 West Thirty-first street, on July 16, the fol- 
lowing officers were elected for the ensuing year: Presi- 
dent, Theodore Biedinger; Vice-President, Albert Bay- 
wood: Record and Corresponding Secretary. James M. 
Wheeden; Financial Secretary, Eugene Fliedner; Treas- 
urer. Daniel A. Nesbitt. Board of Directors— Col. J. F. 
Milliken, Chairman; Henry Schmidt, Louis Berge, Fred 
Hochgraef, Jr., Louis H. Johnson, Henry Graeter Charles 
S. Crane. Committees : Press— James M. Wheeden, 
Eugene Fliedner. Henry Graeter. Law— Col. J. F. Milli- 
ken Joseph Steiner, J. M. Birnbaum. Entertainment— 
A. Baywood, Fred Hochgraef, J. Lightfine. 
J. M. Wheeben, Sec'y. 
The' Fishin? Banfes. 
New York, N. Y., July 29.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
On the steamer Angler off Long Beach Sunday, pas- 
sengers had a rare day's sport. Fluke, sea bass and 
porgies were taken in abundance. Some of the catches 
reported were: Wm. Lutz, 10 fluke, 3 bass; Lank 
Weschler. 3 flitke. S bass; Ike Fishier. 7 fluke, 4 bass; 
Henry Kahn, 4 fluke, 4 bass. A 7H-pound fluke took the 
daily prize, won by Wm. Lutz. My catch was 6 fluke 
and 2 bass. Charles Mansbach. 
Illinois Fishwg, 
_ McHenry, 111., July 27.— In the surrounding lakes and 
rivers, black bass, pike, pickerel and the various smaller 
varieties of fish are being caught in large quantities. 
Some very fine catches of bass and pickerel are daily being 
brought in. 
The FoKBST AWB Stream is put to press each week on Taesday. 
CotTe«i)ondenc« intended tor publication should Ktch as st <Im 
Mondcjr tad ss isueli maiUu u pneArn'mi 
