206 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. is, 1913 
Cold Facts and Dry Grins 
By MIQUE WEBB 
{Coiilinitcd from last iveek.) 
T his fish was the grouper, I was afterward 
informed, and you can always tell when 3'ou 
strike him, as he will come directly toward 
you every time, provided you are standing on a 
dock, or some other place under which he can 
hide. He frequents a pile of rocks or some place 
where he can retreat as an abiding place and 
feeds within a radius of from 50 to 100 yards 
from its base. The one that struck me, true 
to his habits, ran among the piling, covered with 
barnacles, which cut my line as soon as it was 
taut, or else the pain he caused me would have 
been much greater. I was advised if I wanted 
to catch grouper, I must throw out as far as 
possible from the dock, and when I hooked one, 
to reel in fast, taking up the slack as the fish 
came in. I tried, following directions, using cut 
instead of live bait. I soon had one but did not 
reel in fast enough, and he got away with my 
hook and snood. 1 had seven trials before I 
was successful, and then the boatman was re¬ 
sponsible for the catch, as he gaffed the fish 
just as he came to the surface. I lost a hook 
and snood on each trial. My success was a 
small one of seven pounds. The shock on the 
taut line brought him to the surface, his tail 
touching the piling. 
The grouper is a splendid fish, both to catch 
and eat. He is the best of all the bake fish. 
Much better than the rpd snapper. His flesh is 
a fine grain and very white, with a gamy flavor. 
He is the mule of the ocean. In pattern, much 
like our .black bass, is heavily built and as quick 
as a cat. There is no skill required either in 
hooking or playing him. It is main strength 
that fills the grouper fisherman’s bag. Your 
strength against his. I have caught many and 
cannot recall ever having missed hooking on a 
strike. I once went out to a sunken vessel in 
the middle of Tampa Bay, with a party of six. 
We anchored just off the wreck of an old vessel. 
One of the party weighed about 225 pounds. He 
was tall and powerful. During the day I saw 
our extra strong member bend his reel handle, 
which was on a heavy tarpon reel, trying to 
turn a large one. Our party lost over 100 
hooks, and landed seven fish, the largest being 
of tw'enty-six pounds and the smallest seven 
pounds. I had the honor of bringing in the 
smallest, wdiich is called the baby grouper. They 
are babies up to eight pounds. The babies are 
red, wdiile above eight pounds they are dark 
slate. I like grouper fishing the best of all on 
any water. 
On the third da\' I began to wish for some 
pleasant companions to share with me the great 
sport I was having, and as if in answer to my 
prayer, they came in that night. About 10 o’clock 
we had a severe storm with rain and wdnd. A 
party of gentlemen had been to John’s Pass, 
fishing for tarpon, and on this day started back 
for St. Paul. John’s Pass was the inlet at the 
other end of Long Key, about seven miles dis¬ 
tant. They had left this pass, going out or 
around the gulf side of the key, and had at¬ 
tempted to make Pass-a-Grille, this being the 
shortest and best route. The storm caught them 
just before reaching the pass. They had lost 
control of their boat and were blown up on the 
lower point of Long Kej'. They applied to me 
for shelter, and I was only too glad to have them 
for companions. We became fast friends on 
short notice. 
The storm brought us another derelict, the 
greatest curiosity I saw on my trip. A devilfish, 
or sea bat, had been killed at sea. His great 
bod}', weighing about 2,000 pounds, had been 
washed upon the beach. He was a monster of 
the deep. He had evidently been killed with 
long-bladed knives, as there were by actual count, 
ninety-three stab wounds in his body. I was 
informed by my new'-found friends that this fish 
often takes a nap on the surface of the gulf, 
and ships at night frequently run into them. 
Sailors then take butcher knives and lash them 
to stiff poles and lance the fish until dead. They 
are very tenacious of life, and it takes main' 
wounds to kill them. Sailors dread this fish, 
for it has two tentacles or claspers, fleshy ob¬ 
jects about four or five inches wide and from 
two and one-half to three feet long, which ex¬ 
tend outward from one side of its cavernous 
mouth. Their object is undoubtedly to aid in 
securing food. When the fish is moving, they 
are in constant motion, lieing whirled about like 
the tentacles of a squid, and they are muscular 
and powerful, as has been demonstrated on many 
occasions. The natural movement of these 
claspers is inward, and when an object strikes 
between them, it is instinctively held. Thus, if 
l\v accident or design, they strike a ship’s cable, 
these tentacles clasp the chain or cable, and are 
said to hold on until it thunders or the fish is 
killed. There are many authentic cases where 
this fish has dragged vessels from their moor¬ 
ings and carried them many miles out to sea. 
'Ihe first chapter in “Big Game at Sea,” by 
Charles Frederic Holder, deals with this fish. 
The scene of his adventures with the sea bat, 
vampire, giant ray or devilfish were laid in the 
same locality and waters that I was now in. The 
one that was cast upon our beach measured 
twenty feet from wing tip to wing tip, and 
thirteen feet four inches from head to the base 
of his whip-like tail. I would call him diamond¬ 
shaped, the two wing points making the alter¬ 
nate corners and head and tail the others. I 
now had a chance to enlighten myself on the 
devilfish. I had always been under the impres¬ 
sion that his Satanic Majesty was the many- 
tentacled, spider-like octopus or squid, but found 
him to be entirely different. 
The devil was dead and I rejoiced. He was 
very dead, so much so that he began to scent 
the whole locality. We could see a mile away, 
seaward, to deep water, many sharks rolling 
and tumbling, trying to get into the precious bit 
of putrid flesh. We were heartily sorry we 
could not send it out to them. 
My stranded friends now began dredging a 
channel to deep water to float their boat, and I 
returned to my fishing. 
Sunday morning came. All labor ceased on 
the channel, because one member of their party 
was an e.x-parson. They had dubbed him X. 
The others were anxious to go on with the work, 
but X. said no. It was a beautiful day. After 
the morning meal was finished we adjourned to 
the front porch to smoke and chat. I soon found 
that X. was a strong character. An Irishman, a 
Georgian and a ‘’hill-billy’ combined. He was 
one of the most enjoyable characters, except on 
this occasion, I have ever had the good fortune 
to meet; full to the brim with Irish wit and 
humor. He had left tlie ministry to become an 
editor of a weekly paper. 
In the course of conversation I had asked 
him the question, why lie had quit the ministry 
for the newspaper business? His answer was 
illustrative, and assumed the proportions of a 
joke, ridiculous, but we must draw our own con¬ 
clusion from it, as he would give us no better 
reason. His illustration was about as follows: 
An old couple, living in the mountains of 
Georgia, had raised a large family of boys, there 
being twelve in all. The mother had been the 
strongest character of wedlock, and the children 
had been raised to manhood, following her ideas 
and ideals. Both parents were illiterate and very 
poor. Eleven of the boys had attained manhood, 
and all had turned out badlj'. The twelfth was 
a lad of fourteen and the father declared one 
day that Mam had raised eleven failures, and 
he was going to “bust” loose and raise one 
success as a credit to the family, referring to 
Eli, the youngest. IMam was willing for Dad 
to try. To be sure he would not fail, the old 
man decided to make a parson of his boy. He 
sent him away to a boarding school and gave the 
teacher positive instructions to make a preacher 
of his boy. The teacher made every effort to 
make of the boy all the old man desired, but 
the boy being naturally bad, the teacher must 
naturally fail. However, the teacher did not 
notify Dad of the boy’s shortcomings, as he 
needed pupils to pay the expenses of his school. 
Eli absorbed slang as a sponge does water. 
He was very good in all sports and was the best 
“shine’’ player in school. He led the school in 
two ways. He was at the head in the brawit 
class and the tail-ender in the brain class. Books 
had no interest for him. However, in the three 
