FOREST AND STREAM 
tain section, hunting camps have been built, and 
Richardson or Hapgood own most of them. 
Roaring Branch Brook is one of those grand 
trout streams with which this whole region 
abounds so plentifully. 
One morning before breakfast I caught 65 
good sized trout on this stream and caught them 
on worm bait. The middle of November the 
hunting season on deer opened, and all over 
the mountain ranges of the state, deer were 
hunted and shot. They have been very plenti¬ 
ful here this season, and the hunters found them 
a ready prey to their marksmanship. 
All over this region young spruce trees are 
springing up. Wherever the seed of the large 
spruces fall or blow, there the young trees come 
up, and the result is a re-foresting of many 
sections that have for years beeen cleared land. 
Many of these clearings have, within the past 
three years, been completely covered with a 
thick growth of these young spruces. Some of 
them will be cut off to provide Christmas trees. 
To the nature lover, the man who delights in 
the primitive, and loves to get close to the heart 
of Nature, this region offers opportunities un¬ 
surpassed. There are to be found among these 
mountains, game of all kinds, from bear to 
squirrels. Foxes are plentiful; raccoons abound 
on all the mountains, and wild cats are fre¬ 
quently killed by the hunters. Many a night I 
have lain by the campfire, and heard their cries 
from the depths of the forest. 
759 
long, with the points turned in all directions. 
This was the trick. It was only a question of 
strong enough tackle to hold him. The market 
fishermen use a three ply 27 strand cotton line 
and, of course, haul in the fish as fast as they 
can. There are times during the cero season 
when these men catch $50 and $60 worth of fish 
daily. It is their living. The sportsman will 
use a sixteen strand line, fourteen ounce rod 
and a reel with a drag limit of thirty-five pounds. 
I was out several times with the market fisher¬ 
men and sportsmen too; I noticed that only about 
half the strikes were landed and it seemed to 
make little difference how adept a man was in 
handling the cero, whether he was using a hand 
line or rod and reel, he would succeed in getting 
only about half the strikes to the gaff. 
He. may make a hundred foot run toward the 
boat or go in the opposite direction. You must 
be on the alert constantly, because the very mo¬ 
ment there is any slack in your line, he’s gone. 
The king fish is not nearly as sportive as the 
cero, neither do they grow as large. 
I have caught tuna around the Coronado Is¬ 
lands and the kelp beds in the Pacific Ocean off 
San Diego, and I have caught tarpon in the Ca- 
loosahatchie River in Florida. That is real 
sport,—real expensive sport. I like it all right, 
but find that a man with limited means can not 
afford to follow it very long. 
Cero fishing appeals to me because it is some¬ 
thing new on the Atlantic Coast. It is get-at- 
able, economical and comfortable sport. For $50 
I can have two weeks of excellent fishing, good 
living, pay my railroad fare and incidentals from 
New York to Morehead City and return. 
Thirty-five to forty cero is an average day’s 
catch to the boat during the month of October. 
The largest cero caught during the season of 
1915 weighed 52 pounds, and measured four feet 
nine inches long. Several were caught that 
weighed 45 to 47% pounds. The largest king 
fish weighed 31 pounds and was four feet one 
inch long. 
The first cero I saw landed weighed 26 pounds. 
This fish, for a small one, made more trouble 
and required longer time to land than any fish 
of its size that I was ever in contact with. We 
were trolling with two lines out, about six miles 
per hour. A slight jar of the lines caused me 
to think that they were being dragged over the 
back of a shark but there was nothing visible 
along the lines at this time. Immediately there 
was a strike at both lines, one of the baits was 
knocked into the air at least ten feet and a fish 
came out of the water after it, catching the bait 
and, with a long sweep of the rod, this cero was 
hooked while six feet above the surface of the 
sea. We did not know that each line had hooked 
a cero because the lines were crossed when the 
bait was knocked out of the water. Thirty min¬ 
utes later the dorsal fin of a shark was seen 
cutting the water toward our cero, and the next 
instant a terrific tug on both lines caused us to 
swear, for we knew what had happened. 
Slowly the lines came in. Not a word was 
spoken until, bur-r-r, out went both lines for 50 
feet, when Bill says, “I got him yet.” A few 
mad rushes and more tangles in the lines; then 
the boy gaffed a 26 pound cero. As the end of 
the other line came in I was surprised to find 
the head and part of the body of the larger cero 
on the hooks. The shark had taken about two- 
thirds of this fish, cut the cero in two as clean 
as it could have been done with a sharp knife. 
Scomberomorus Cavalla 
Otherwise The Cero — A Fish That Will Jump Six Feet in the Air 
To Grab the Flying Bait—But Look Out for Sharks! 
By Samuel Warry. 
T HE Caribbean mackerel until 1911 was sup¬ 
posed to be a non-migratory fish. They 
are very much like the gulf king fish 
(Scomberomorus Regalis) and are known now 
to range together as far north as Cape Hatteras. 
The cero (Scomberomorus Cavalla) has greater 
depth of body and will weigh at least a third 
more than the king fish of the same length! It 
has a dark blue back and a pale blue belly, while 
the king fish has light blue back and light brown 
or nearly white belly. 
October is the best time for cero fishing on 
the Carolina coast, although some cero are 
caught during September and they continue to 
run till the middle of November. 
A friend of mine who lives in Morehead City 
wrote me about the cero fishing at Cape Look¬ 
out. He said “it was great sport,” and as I 
knew he did not become enthused over any ordi¬ 
nary fishing, concluded that catching cero must 
be worth while. Five years ago I fished at Look¬ 
out for Spanish mackerel and bluefish, and at 
that time the cero was only known as an “elu¬ 
sive rascal” in these waters. The fishermen did 
not know how to catch them. 
I understand there are more fish, and a greater 
variety of fish, shipped from Morehead City to 
New York than from any other place along the 
coast. One fish company bought, packed and 
shipped, 19,000 pounds of cero in one day. 1912 
was an off year for fishing there, as the natives 
tell about it, and very few fish of any kind were 
being caught when the cero (elusive rascals) 
arrived. “Necessity,—scarcity of other fish”— 
mothered the idea of inventing some means to 
catch the cero. Purse nets, haul nets and gill 
nets were tried, but no cero were caught. One 
company spent $6,000 in putting down a pound 
net, said to be the largest one ever erected, which 
was located about the middle of Lookout bight, 
five miles from shore. A few cero were caught 
in the pound, but these were usually inside a 
few 300 to 600 pound sharks. Needless to sav 
the considerable work of hoisting out a shark 
of this size and opening it to get a 40 pound cero 
which the shark had swallowed made the fish¬ 
ing unprofitable. 
I was informed that as many as 130 sharks 
weighing from five to one thousand pounds each 
were removed from this net in one day. Many 
of the sharks taken from the pound had hooks 
in their mouths. They had been feeding on the 
bait attached to trout lines, still fishing. 
The cero is wary of any object, moving or 
stationary, except its prey. They follow the 
A Three Hours’ Catch of Cero—19 Fish 
Weighing 460 Pounds. 
bait continuously, their principal food being the 
small transparent minnow which runs in large 
schools in deep water. Their method of feeding 
is to get under a school of bait and rush up 
through it with mouth open wide. If the bait 
is near the surface, cero will frequently get up 
such momentum while ascending that they often 
come out of the water for a distance of ten to 
thirty feet. 
Every known means for catching fish was tried 
out, but still the cero was an uncaught fish. All 
kinds of tackle were used! one hook, two hooks 
with a mullet bait. The cero would steal the 
mullet and, if he was hooked at all, it would 
be on the outside of his mouth. 
This was the beginning of the end, for not 
knowing how to catch a cero, after finding out 
that they would take the mullet bait, it was nec¬ 
essary to learn how to attach the hooks to this 
bait so the cero could not steal it without getting 
caught. At last, four hooks were enclosed in 
the bait, making a string of hooks about a foot 
