814 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June 29, 1912 
Frequently, if a man is not able to pay his 
fine, the pirates will club together and raise the 
money rather than see him go to jail. In the 
case of an honest old man who, because he was 
so desperately poor, had hired to a pirate and 
both were captured and sent up, a subscription 
was circulated, and everyone assisted in his re¬ 
lease, for he was nearly heart broken over the 
disgrace of imprisonment. 
When a stranger settles in the neighborhood, 
it takes years for him to distinguish between 
the pirates and the honest citizen, because the 
nets are hauled at night in most cases. 
A minister who was calling at a young farm¬ 
er’s house one evening inquired after the hus¬ 
band. The young wife hesitated an instant and 
replied that he was plowing. The minister 
professed astonishment at his ambition, and she 
assured him that Jim often plowed on moon¬ 
light nights. When the good man had departed 
her sister asked her why she had lied to him. 
“I am not lying. Jim is plowing; he is plow¬ 
ing the deep,” she retorted. 
The game warden is generally frightened out 
Log of a Fishing 
E arly next morning we ran down to Bahia 
Honda, 12 miles, and anchored off the rein¬ 
forced railway trestle, across the channel 
from West Summerland. It was a warm, clear day, 
thermometer 81 degrees, and our appetites were 
whetted by seeing a yacht at anchor with three 
tarpon in her rigging. We spent the rest of 
the morning catching the indispensable mullet in 
the cast net for bait. The gunman killed with 
a fine shot a large needle fish under water. 
Started tarpon fishing in the afternoon, the gun¬ 
man and scribe in the big boat with the captain 
and photographer alone with Bill. It was “some” 
afternoon, too. The scribe got two sharks and 
an 18-pound carvallo; the gunman a brother to 
it; the photographer two sharks and a huge 
yellowtail jack. As the afternoon waned, nobler 
sport came to hand. The photographer hooked 
two tarpon, got them up to the boat after long 
play and most provokingly lost both, in one case 
the line parting and the other fish being carried 
off when exhausted by a large shark. The gun¬ 
man lost his only strike after having him on for 
fifteen minutes. The scribe’s first one got round 
some spiling under the railway trestle and frayed 
the line in two, but he landed the second on the 
beach in the darkness, a short thick fish weigh¬ 
ing ninety pounds. By that time it was blow¬ 
ing hard, with a lumpy sea against the tide. We 
were glad to get aboard, well soaked, for a late 
dinner. All night it blew a young southeast 
gale, which whistled through the rigging, and 
this day, March 15, was dull, thermometer 81 
degrees, with yacht rolling at her anchor, water 
very roily and not a tarpon in evidence, so we 
went after needed mullet bait, annexing a baby 
jewfish, thirty-two pounds, and a thirty-pound 
yellowtail en route. 
of his office. He trips over wires and ropes in 
unexpected places, stones fall out of clear skies, 
and beer bottles filled with wet sand drop out 
of trees. He steps into steel traps and plunges 
from a safe looking bit of plank into a nasty 
pool of water. 
Undoubtedly some have been bought off, to 
be dismissed later, for inefficiency. 
Sometimes a pirate offers to help the warden, 
claiming that he is sick of the business. He is 
of course in the pay of the fishermen also, and 
makes a neat sum by steering the constable to 
a spot where he can drag the lake for a week 
without touching a net. 
So, frightened out, bought off, tired and dis¬ 
gusted, the game warden owns to the fruitless¬ 
ness of his search, and retires a sadder, wiser 
man. 
Empty boxes are shipped to the lake ports for 
kindling and go back where they came from 
full of sawdust. 
The city visitor going down to the lake for 
a plunge at early dawn sees the strange spectacle 
of five or six rowboats full of excited men who 
In Three Parts—Part II. 
After an early tropical thunderstorm, March 
16, the wind veered round from southeast to 
northwest, thermometer 77 degrees, and we were 
out for tarpon at 6 a. m. The scribe landed a 
nice gamy fish, 125 pounds, 6 feet 6 inches long. 
We met a Spanish Jew employed by the Florida 
East Coast Railway that afternoon, who was 
very bearish on the chances of success of the 
Key West extension, and said “F. E. C.” was in¬ 
terpreted by the men as “Flagler’s Easy Coin.” 
The scribe’s impression is that the greatest dif¬ 
ficulty the road has to encounter is the entire 
absence of any water but rain water at Key 
West, its southern terminal. Rain water alone 
is too precarious a supply for a great railway 
system to depend on, and although the road has 
driven wells some 800 feet deep, it has obtained 
no water suitable for locomotives. All the water 
the railway now uses is transported from Home¬ 
stead in huge wooden tanks bolted to flat cars, 
and the bulk of the traffic seemed to us to con¬ 
sist of these trains carrying water to Key West 
and returning empty. On the northern trip they 
are exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, 
which start the seams, making the tanks leak 
badly. This is an expensive and partially inade¬ 
quate supply, and it is understood that the rail- 
waj' has in contemplation an extensive condenser 
system, which it is hoped will solve the water 
problem. The indefatigable photographer went 
out for tarpon after dinner, although it was 
blowing very fresh. He reported four strikes, 
but they all got off in the wind and darkness. 
The captain woke up all hands Sunday morn¬ 
ing, the 17th, at 4 :45 by clanging the ship’s bell, 
and we tumbled out at that unearthly hour with 
a chorus of growls to find better weather condi¬ 
tions, moderate easterly breeze, thermometer 82 
are dragging their hands heavily in the water. 
Suddenly they leap out of their boats and scatter 
in a big circle, still pulling at something in the 
water. The city visitor rolls a pebble under his 
feet; they turn and see him. To his utter amaze¬ 
ment when he looks up there is not a man to 
be seen in the spot where he has been gazing. 
But for the softly rocking boats he would think 
it a dream. He watches sharply for half an 
hour and nothing disturbs the scene. There are 
the same stones sticking out of the water, or are 
there more? He gives it up and walks off to 
the bathing house. 
Almost before he is out of sight they spring- 
out of the water and haul the squirming load 
upon the sandy beach, the gasping minnows to 
die before being rudely thrown back into the 
water, and the uneatables flung in a heap to 
rot. One or two pirates hurry for help to dress 
the catch of the season, and by 9 o’clock hun¬ 
dreds of fresh flsh are on their way to New 
York, and the city visitor fishes all day in the 
broiling sun, and the next day and the next, and 
never catches even a “pumpkin seed.” 
degrees. But the water was roily and disturbed 
from the blow, and tarpon are shy about com¬ 
ing back to the channels until it clears. We 
wallowed about in the small boats in a tre¬ 
mendous flood tide and choppy sea and gave it 
up at eight, seeing no fish rolling anywhere. 
The gunman accounted for a 75-pound shark, 
which his ever ready gun put out of business, 
and after dinner we must confess that over¬ 
powering sleepiness laid undeniable hold on us, 
while the captain, who is a combination of rub¬ 
ber and steel, with an infusion of dynamite, and 
has the advantage of us in years, put us to shame 
by going forth with deckhand Harry, and came 
back triumphant with two tarpon, 86 and 40 
pounds. 
March 18 was a royal day, hot and sunny, 
thermometer 86 degrees, and we started in on 
the first of the ebb at 10 a. m., after beaching 
the yacht to repair a slight leak in the stuffing 
box. The scribe landed an unusual fish. 51 
pounds, not mentioned in Gregg’s book, but pro¬ 
nounced by Bill to be a “cobao,” flat, broad head, 
lightish brown color, except patch of pure white 
on belly from ventral fln to gills. The gunman 
hooked on to a 130-pound jewflsh, and that de¬ 
termined little gentleman pumped away at the 
logy brute till he got him to gaff, an exhausting 
operation calling for patience. This was a day 
to mark with a red stone for the scribe, as he 
tied to a big tarpon one trestle east side of the 
central arch and landed him after fifty minutes' 
play—a royal bird he proved, 185 pounds, 7 feet 
8 inches long. In the afternoon we went in the 
launch for bait and tied up alongside the West 
Summerland trestle. A sudden and very heavy 
squall of wind and rain jammed her against the 
dock, tore off part of her bow and stove in port 
Cruise on the East Coast of Florida 
By ROBERT SEDGWICK (THE SCRIBE) 
