1248 
FOREST AND STREAM 
KEY WEST O e? 
No matter what other places you 
have planned to visit this winter 
see Florida first. Make your 
plans early, thus insuring choice of 
accommodations. It will pay you to 
write now and see for yourself how 
comfortably and inexpensively you can 
go on low round trip fares from New 
York to 
Jacksonville, St. Augustine 
Miami, Palm Beach,Tampa, 
Key West, St. Petersburg 
AND ALL OTHER 
Florida Resorts, 
Charleston and the Carolinas 
Clyde-Mallory steamers offer the ideal 
route — delicious cuisine, spacious social 
halls, latest magazines, broad decks, 
comfortable staterooms, some with con¬ 
necting private bath. 
REMEMBER meals and 
sleeping accommodations 
aboard ship are included 
in the fare without ad¬ 
ditional cost. 
Fall and Winter bookings now open 
Write for information and beautiful descriptive literature 
CLYDE - MALLORY LINES 
Pier 36, North River, New York 
DISTRICT PASSENGER OFFICES 
Boston Philadelphia New York 
192 Washington St. 701 Chestnut St. 290 Broadway 
AGWI 
Highest velocity rifles in the world. A new bolt action rifle, American 
made from butt plate to muzzle. Calibers .22 to .35. Velocity 3,100 f. s. 
Newton straight line hand reloading tools. Send stamp for descriptive circular. 
Price $40.00 
NEWTON HIGH POWER RIFLES 
NEWTON ARMS CO., Inc., 506 Mutual Life Bldg., BUFFALO, N.Y. 
necessary to pull the boat out of water, as a 
properly thatched punty of the correct color 
can be pulled alongside the point and is not at 
all conspicuous. Drive a stake in firmly on the 
shore and use a short, looped painter to hold 
the boat in place; when a bird is killed reach 
over the gunwale and lift the loop off the stake; 
with an oar push out to the bird and get back 
quickly! Use as many stools as you can get— 
75 to ioo is none too many. Ducks come in to 
stool because they think the latter are either 
feeding or “rafting,” and a small bunch of de¬ 
coys does not presage particularly good feeding 
ground; of course, unless the bunch is large 
the ducks are not “rafting.” A few live “honk¬ 
ers” are a great addition to the decoys, but do 
without the honk unless you can get live ducks 
to do it for you. 
To get back to our subject: In the summer¬ 
time most duck punties are seen hauled out high 
and dry; the writer’s punty is usually seen on 
the water, as it is a very comfortable little sail 
boat when the bay is not too rough. She points 
into the wind as close as most big boats, and 
on a beam wind or a reach is a marvel for 
speed. The old baymen say, “A duckin’ punty 
hain’t got no business with center-bo’d,” but we 
cannot agree. Our punty is our yacht and one 
of many uses . 
A 215-POUND TARPON. 
Coden, Ala., Sept. 7, 1916. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A few days ago a record tarpon was landed 
here by W. G. Oliver, president Oliver-Shearer- 
Roebuck Realty Co., 2025 3rd Ave., Birmingham, 
Ala. This fish was brought into the hotel and 
weighed on a pair of scales which were tested 
and sworn to. Measured and weighed and sworn 
to before a notary by Hon. Hugh Morrow, Dr. 
W. M. Jordan and Dr. A. A. Walker of Bir¬ 
mingham, Ala., also Earl Byrant of Bayou La 
Batre, Ala., and M. E. Bosarge of Coden, Ala., 
Earl Bryant being the guide. This giant fish 
was found to measure 6 feet and 11 inches in 
length, 43 inches in girth and weighed 215 
pounds. This is the greatest place in the South 
for tarpon; seven were brought in recently, 
by one party, one day’s fishing. J. E. Rolston. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
There is a world of hidden wealth for the 
sportsman in Mississippi, with its vast resources 
in fish and game, its magnificent timber lands 
and streams; its grand lakes and bayous, its 
millions of wild flowers and old historical In¬ 
dian towns with their great Indian mounds, 
from such streams as Tallahatchie, Pelahatchie, 
Topisaw, Bogue Chitto and Chickasawhay. 
And the Delta—with its jungles and cane 
brakes; its lazy flowing streams and big lakes, 
where the Colonel made his famous bear hunt, 
and, as the story goes, the bear hunters caught 
and tied a bear for T. R. to shoot, which he 
declined to do. I have seen four black bass 
hooked at one cast with four dry flies used on 
a leader. I have seen five wild geese killed at 
one shot near Roundaway, on the Sunflower 
River in Coahoma County, with a muzzle-load¬ 
ing shot-gun loaded with buck shot. Around 
Eagle Lake and Swan Lake in my judgment is 
the best small game hunting country in the 
world to-day. 
I could open the eyes of the sporting world 
if I had the time to write up this sun-kissed 
land, the land of the magnolia and the mocking 
bird, with its cool glades and sheltered glens, 
famous for its long Indian summers and the 
hospitality of its people. W. E. Davidson, 
Deputy State Game Warden. 
