Nov. 24, 1900.] 
would find his way home from Wall street to Central 
Park or to Brooklyn or to Jersey City, or a countryman 
to his native village in sight of his church spire three 
miles distant. The trout were first caught in the after- 
noon and liberated after dark at the second place. I 
have no doubt they were at home on the following morn- 
ing. This seems puzzling, but is quite clear. How 
fishes find their way in the water, be it fresh or salt, is an 
unsettled question, but not in my mind. It would re- 
quire an illustration at some length, which I will give 
at a later day. 
NOVEMBBR, 1900. 
Tarpon Fishing. 
I.— Where to Go. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 28. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
In my letter of Aug. 7 I offered to write for your paper 
a series of ajticles on tarpon fishing, with the intention 
of evoking a discussion on the subject by anglers of "la 
grande ecaille," and suggested that I would like first to 
obtain through youv correspondence columns a little 
encoiaragement from other tarpon fishermen in shape of 
promises of help in the task I have undertaken. 
One only, however, has come to the fore, viz., Mr. C. 
K. B., in your issue of Oct. 6. To this gentleman I beg 
to extend my hearty thanks for his letter, and to request 
that he will continue his courtesy by discussing each 
of my succeeding papers. Tarpon fishing at Galveston 
is a subject that would interest many sportsmen through- 
out the United States, for that city is readily accessible 
from a large portion of the country. It has been my in- 
tention for more than a year to try the sport at that 
place; and I hold an invitation from one of the members 
of the Galveston Tarpon Club (this may not be the 
exact name of the organization) to try the fishing there 
and test the facilities, so that if the conditions prove 
satisfactory I can join' the club. As before going to a 
new fishing ground I always make as thorough an in- 
vestigation as possible concerning the conditions affect- 
ing the sport, I shall later in this letter ask Mr. C. K. B. 
(whose full name and address it would be interesting to 
know) to answer in your columns a number of questions. 
But now to get down to business. 
The first of the promised papers is entitled ''Where 
to Go," and it is with that subject this letter shall treat, 
although I fear that, after perusing it, many of your read- 
ers will come to the conclusion that the writer of such 
a paper ought to be a much more experienced tarpon 
fisherman that I, who have not yet even attained to 
the century mark, my score to date being only sixty- 
three. However, if I have good luck a month hence at 
Tampico, I may reach that limit which is supposed to 
warrant a sportsman in terming himself a "tarpon fish- 
erman." And just here let me state that I hope to spend 
the last week of November, and, if my work in Mexico 
will permit, the first half of December at Tampico or 
La Barra, six miles therefrom; and that it would give 
me true pleasure to meet there at that time a few kindred 
spirits from this country who desire to test the sport at 
what I consider to be the ideal fishing grounds of the 
world. Knowing the place well, and being supplied 
abundantly with tackle of the right kind, I could make it 
pleasant there for any true lover of the finest sport on 
earth. 
My address at Tampico will be in care of A. B. Ross, 
Esq., C. E., Resident Engineer, of the -New Wharf. 
The first tarpon resort that I shall mention is the one 
that I know most about, viz., Aransas Pass, the post 
office name of which is Tarpon, Tex. This place is sit- 
uated at the extreme eastern end of Mustang Island, and 
is reached by sloop from Rockport, some fifteen miles 
distant, the sail requiring from two to six hours, ac- 
cording to the conditions of wind and tide. Rockport 
is reached only by the San Antonio & Aransas Pass 
Railroad, and the journey there from the north or east 
is somewhat slow. This counts against the resort more 
or less; but the sport and the accessories are good 
enough to i-epay the long journey. 
The hamlet of Tarpon contains not more than twenty 
houses and about seventy-five people, a large portion 
of them making their living out of tarpon fishing. There 
is an unpretentious but comfortable hotel called the 
Tarpon Inn, kept by Mr. Frank Hetfield, a genial and 
accommodating host, and his good wife, who looks care- 
fully after the welfare of the guests. The rooms are ex- 
ceedingly clean and comfortable; the table is fairly good; 
the service is quite satisfactory, and the water supply is 
now wholesome, although in times past it was just the 
contrary. There is no style whatever about the place, 
there being an unwritten rule to the efifect that any man 
who goes to the table with a coat on has to set up the 
drinks for the crowd. These drinks, by the way, are 
all right, especially the native wine, made on the main- 
land between Rockport or Corpus Christi. 
There is generally at the hotel a small number of 
pleasant people, including a few experienced tarpon fish- 
ermen, who are always ready to be of service to the 
novice. 
Boats and skilled boatmen are almost always to be 
had, and Mr. Farley, the taxidermist, is always there 
during the season, prepared to moimt skillfully and for 
a moderate charge the results of the fishermen's prowess. 
The hotel rates are $2 per day or $10,50 per week; 
the boatmen's charges, including boat and bait, are $2.50 
per dai^ or $3.50 for two persons in a boat; and the 
price for mounting a tarpon is $12. 
The fishing grounds are practicallj^ included in the 
pass proper, a stretch of water about a thousand feet 
wide and a couple of miles long, extending from Point 
of Rocks to the end of the jetty. But at times there is 
good fishing above Point of Rocks, where the water is 
much wider, and at others the fish are found outside in 
the gulf, although it is only occasionally that the water is 
calm enough to go there. I have had excellent sport on a 
number of occasions close to St. Joe Point, across from 
Point of Rocks, at other times close to the shore of 
Mustang Island, at others close to the shore end of the 
exposed portion of the jetty, and at others out in the gulf 
near the submerged portion of the jetty. Sometimes the 
psh run in midchannel, ?ind, too often, they are not to 
FORE ST^ AND^ STREAM. 
be found anywhere in the neighborhood. Fishing at 
Aransas is a very uncertain business — you may strike it 
rich, and again you may go a week or more without 
hooking a fish. For instance, when I was there during 
the latter half of last June I had nine strikes, and landed 
five large fish during the first forenoon, yet my average 
for the outing was hardly one tarpon a day, for in two 
weeks I had twenty strikes and landed twelve. This, I 
believe, is the highest percentage on record at Aransas, 
the average being about one out of ten, and among the 
experts about one out of five. In a subsequent paper 
I shall tell my method of fishing, by which I now man- 
age to land fully one-half of the fish that strike. 
Besides tarpon, one catches at Aransas Pass juckfish, 
jewfish, salt-water pike, kingfish, sharks of several 
varieties, including leaping sharks, stingrays (some of 
enormous size), channel bass or redfish, Spanish mack- 
erel, trout or weakfish and skipjacks or ladyfish, besides 
any quantity of small fishes of many kinds, which may 
come under the general denomination of "pan fish." 
Good fishing can sometimes be had on mackerel and 
jackfish, the other varieties being caught only occasion- 
ally. 
Two years ago at Aransas I wound up my trip by 
taking in a forenoon twenty-one fish of six different 
kinds, weighing in all fully 350 pounds. The next fore- 
noon I killed over fifty ducks to my own gun. 
There are other places in the vicinity of Aransas Pass 
where tarpon can be taken, and where at times fine sport 
can be had, among others Flower Bluft', over toward 
Corpus Christi; Shell Banks, half way between Tarpon 
and Rockport and a mile or two to the west of the 
main channel, and Mission Bay. 
Concerning Flower Bluff I know nothing, except from 
hearsay; but I do not believe it would pay for any one 
except a resident of Corpus Christi to go there, as the 
fishing at the pass is so much better, and as the water 
is so wide as to make fishing impracticable when the 
Avind blows at all hard. 
As for Shell Banks, I took one 5J^-footer there after 
sunset, beaching it in seven minutes by the watch, as I 
was in a hurry to get another, in which ambition, how- 
ever, I was disappointed, because the struggles of the 
fish on the sand broke my wire, and it took me so long 
to get on another snell that darkness stopped the fishing. 
By the way, though, I have heard that it is practicable 
to catch tarpon by moonlight. It seems to me that this 
would be unsatisfactory, as one would miss seeing so 
much of the fun. 
It was told me that in September and October, when 
the northers are blowing so hard that there is no fishing 
at the pass, the tarpon congregate in great numbers at 
Shell Banks, but that there is no one there to catch them. 
Some day I hope to strike it rich there under these con- 
ditions. 
As for fishing at Mission Bay, it is no place to go to 
except for a couple of days. It lies to the northeast of 
Rockport some twenty miles or more by water, and is 
reached by sloop, provided the master of the vessel 
knows the channels. Fully one-half of the way is 
through shoal water. The fishing ground is a very 
small stretch of narrow but comparatively deep channel, 
say 6 or 8 feet, between an extensive bay or mud flat and 
the larger bay. One should run his sloop into the chan- 
nel and moor her head and stern against the bank. 
Generally the water is muddy, so the fish don't strike 
well, but when they do the fun is fast and furious. When 
the water is running out and soon after the tide has 
turned, the fishing is best; but I have heard that some- 
times they strike all day. It appears to me that there is 
only a small number of tarpon at this place, and that 
they are old residents. At any rate, I could see what I 
deemed to be the same tarpon jump or rise at exactly the 
same spot time after time, but after our trolling up and 
down a few times they appeared to get on to the game, 
and would pay no attention to the bait. One morning, 
however, I had six strikes in an hour and a half, landing 
only one and nearly landing another. I failed to set the 
hook into the other four, owing to the fact that I was 
fishing from a stationary boat without a boatman, and 
that I had out a long line with a large cork float at the 
upper end of the snell. On this account I could not 
strike the hook in before the fish jumped. My eldest 
boy had a hard fight with a big fish the next morning, 
but lost it while it was being brought to gaff, and I 
landed a stingray that must have weighed fully one 
hundred pounds. 
The surroundings at this place are utterly desolate, 
most of the ground being submerged at very high water, 
and there is hardly a habitation to be seen. On a calm 
night the mosquitoes must be plentiful, so I adivse sports - 
men who try this locality to take along some mosquito 
netting. Now that I know that these insects inoculate 
one with malaria, I have a much greater espect for them 
than I had in my younger days, when I used to sleep 
among swarms of them in the Georgian Bay country 
without any shelter or protection whatever. 
Mission Bay channel is not a good place to land a 
tarpon, as the banks are steep and the water so narrow 
that one naturally prefers to fish from the bank. Indeed, 
it is the only safe thing to do, for the tarpon are likely 
to jump into the boat. One that I hooked came so near 
to doing this that I hurried ashore and finished the fight 
from the bank. 
There is another similar place just across the bay from 
this point, and about six miles by land, nearly due north 
of Rockport, where there are said to be some tarpon; but 
it is not as good as Mission Bay channel, although there 
is a hotel there where sportsmen are accommodated, es- 
pecially for the duck shooting in winter. Nobody that ■ 
I ever heard of goes there for tarpon. 
The next locality that T shall deal with is Tampico, but 
as I have latelj^ written for Forest and Stream a full 
description of my last winter's outing there, I shall sim- 
ply state that the best spots for tarpon are near the outer 
ends of the jetties, at the mouth of the river just op- 
posite the city, and at the mouth of the next large river 
some three or four miles above, just where the Mexican 
Central Railway crosses. There are a few other fair 
spots, but these three are by far the best points. At the 
mouths of the branch rivers the best fishing is generally 
to be had when the tide is going out. and at the jetties 
I have had usually the best luck in the forenoon. 
I wj\s tolfl that there is another river, soin^ thirty miles 
409 
from the Panuco, on which Tampico is situated, where 
there are three or four times as many tarpon as there 
are in the Tampico waters. Some day I may explore this 
locality and report thereon afterwards. One would need 
a steam or naphtlia launch, though, to make the trip. 
Vera Cniz is no place to go for tarpon fishing, for 
several good reasons. First, while there are certainly 
some tarpon there, there is no special place for them to 
congregate, owing to the fact that no stream empties 
into the harbor, which is entirely artificial. Second, there 
are no facilities for fishing, and no one there knows 
anything about the sport. And third, and most important 
of all, there is always yellow fever at Vera Cruz. 
Alvarado, some forty or fifty miles further down the 
coast, is an entirely different kind of place. The town 
is small and not unhealthy, and the location is beautiful. 
There are fish to be caught, but how many and at what 
times of the year I cannot say. I tried the fishing once 
with a hand-line from a large and unwieldy canoe, no 
skiffs being available, but soon gave it up and contented 
myself with watching my companion and some natives 
catch some fine jackfish and channel bass with long cast 
lines and heavy sinkers. It struck me that there must 
be times at this place when one could get excellent sport 
on tarpon. 
At Tlacotalpam, some twenty-five miles up the river 
from Alvarado, there are said to be lots of tarpon during 
the months of March and April. The natives harpoon 
them and shoot them on the jump with bow and arrow — 
at least this is what an old resident American assured 
me. No one had ever caught a tarpon there on rod and 
line, and the old fellow I talked to would hardly believe 
that such a thing is possible, but as he saw my tackle he 
concluded that I must have bought it for fishing pur- 
poses, so T might possibly be speaking the truth when I 
told him that I had caught tarpon thereon. 
At Coatzacoalcos, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, I 
endeavored to test the tarpon fishing, but as I spent all 
of my time at that place in bed with a severe attack of 
coast fever I had to transfer my fishing outfit to my 
assistant, who had never even seen a tarpon. After try- 
ing a couple of times without getting a strike, he gave 
it up. but brought me some tarpon scales that he found 
on the beach, proving the existence in these waters of 
"la grande ecaille." Inquiries among the fishermen, owing 
to their ignorance and our bad Spanish, elicited very 
little information of any value. They say that at certain 
seasons tarpons are plentiful, but that the river is in- 
fested with sharks, two men having caught eighty of 
them in a single day, all of them being small — only about 
four feet long. No one would care to go to Coatzacoal- 
cos especially for the sport. It is too far away, and last 
summer the yellow fever more than decimated the popu- 
lation. 
How far south the tarpon ranges I have been unable 
to ascertain, the only information that I have succeeded 
in collecting being contained in the following extracts 
from a couple of letters from my old friend and former 
professor, Alfred S. Bertolet. 
"It is true that the tarpon is unsalable in the markets ■ 
of this country. But along the northern coast of South 
America it is used as food, and is generally found in the 
markets of the coast towns. I remember seeing a few 
years ago at Cartagena fishermen bring in sabalos in 
numbers. They were taken, I was informed, by harpoon- 
ing. If this is true, I would say it is the most sensible 
way of capturing them. 
"It was frequently served in the hotel I was staying 
at, and I thought it was good. Several fellow guests said 
they preferred it to all other kinds of fish in that market. 
I fancy a few experiments in the art of cookery would 
prove to you, Megalops atlanticus, Cuv. & Val., a fish fit 
for the table. I assure you it is far better than any species 
of our game Esox. 
"I regret that I cannot give you any reliable informa- 
tion concerning the habitat of the tarpon in South Ameri- 
can waters. It was represented to me that its range 
includes the whole northern coast of South America, and 
that it is consumed in considerable quantities by the 
people of those parts. 
"However, only at Cartagena had I an opportunity to 
verify the truthfulness of this. It was there, while de- 
layed nearly a fortnight during the month of February 
several years ago_, I used to amuse myself by strolling 
early every morning through the market place. There 
were always some tarpon — one morning I remember 
counting eight. KM the fish were adults. 
"As served at the hotel the fish was certainly not 'tough 
and oily.' I fear its edible qualities have been largely 
condemned on hearsa3^" 
Concerning the edible qualities of the silver king I can 
give Prof. Bertolet's remarks a partial indorsement, for 
on two occasions I have had 20-pounders served, and 
have found them fairly good eating, but I have never 
tackled an adult specimen, although I saw them sold by 
the cross section in the Tlacotalpam market. I have 
noticed, though, that while the Mexicans appeared quite 
grateful for jewfish, pike and even jackfish, they were 
not eager to take the tarpon I offered them. 
There is one more locality where I have twice tried 
tarpon fishing, but without success, although there were 
plenty of the fish there at times, and some immense 
fellows too. I refer to the neighborhood of Sabine Pass 
and Port Arthur, Texas. Notwithstanding my poor suc- 
cess I feel confident that by going at it in the right way 
and at the right season, one could obtain excellent sport 
in that vicinity. A few tarpon have been caught there 
during the last two or three years, but the fishing that 
is done is only desultory. 
If this article meet the eye of my friend, Mr. Craig, of 
Port Arthur, I hooe he will contribute his share of in- 
formation to the fishing fraternity by describing in de- 
tail in Forest and Stream the haunts of the grande 
ecaille in his district. The best points that I know of are 
along the east side of the east jetty, close to the oyster 
bank opposite the town of Sabine, and at the mouth of 
Ta5'-lor's Bayou, where the new ship basin is being ex- 
cavated. At Keith's Gully there used to be many tarpon, 
but the ship canal closed the mouth of this, so the tarpon 
go there no longer. It would not surprise me to learn 
that there is good sport to be had in the canal itself, for 
a Japanese friend of mine, who was -down there last sum- 
mer, told me that he saw a number of tarpon juwpinif 
in the canal as he passed through it on a laufich. 
