Some Fishing Memories. 
The approach of cold weather reminds me 
that Northern blizzards and Florida sunshine 
are in no wise closely related; nor is it possible 
to intimately associate them, and yet whenever 
the former grip me, involuntarily I turn in 
memory to the latter. 
The harder it snows and the colder it blows, 
the more clearly scenes of other days—winter 
by the calendar and summer by environment 
_—stand forth. It is not all beer and skit¬ 
tles” in winter, even in Florida, but when you 
lie on the white sand under a blue, cloudless 
sky, looking over the white breakers out on 
the green water dimpling and scintillating to 
the horizon—and think of the morning home 
letter with its “foot of ice and fields of snow” 
report, you wonder if such things can really be. 
An hour later, after you have tumbled about 
in the surf, in water that is barely a bit snappy, 
and are lying full length on the warm sand, 
with Old Sol’s rays stirring every nerve-fiber 
in your anatomy, like the greatest of old 
masseurs—as he is—you again wonder can such 
things as ice, snow and chill winds be? 
Then when the tide is right and you have 
your anchor holding just where you want it, 
and send your bait out with a sweep and swing 
that cause your lungs to fill with a long, deep 
inhalation, and you note the miniature up¬ 
heaval of silvery drops when it lands just 
where you intended it should, and sinks down 
until you see you have all the necessary water 
to do business with the big fellows, and you 
throw on the drag, pull your hat brim a little 
lower, and light up the pipe, you return again 
to that question, raised by the letter, can suchi 
things be? 
It is hard for some people to believe what 
they do not see, and an occasional individual 
is met with who remains skeptical under op¬ 
tical demonstration, and to each and every one 
of these—of the former or latter class—I ex¬ 
tend a broad catholic charity. 
Born and bred inland, all new and interest¬ 
ing to me on my first visits to the Florida 
seacoast. Passionately fond of fishing, I 
reveled in that sport. The much-lauded shoot¬ 
ing I know little about, personally, although 
carrying a gun to Florida many winters. Any¬ 
where off the water the sun is hot, and tramp¬ 
ing a positive exertion; and though ready and 
willing to go the limit of human endurance in 
pursuit of game, under seasonable conditions, 
hunting under a hot sun in summer tempera¬ 
ture, has never appealed to me. 
When you come to close quarters with the 
denizens of the briny, and see them preying 
upon one another, the greater upon the lesser, 
the lesser upon the less, the less upon the 
least, ad infinitum, you feel that to take them 
fairly and kill them decently is a work of 
kindness and mercy. A ton of striped tiger, 
surcharged with ferocious bloodthirstiness, is 
modest in his kill when compared to a shark, 
or even to a bluefish. Every rod of water 
seems full of tragedy in the restless sea, and to 
one seeing it for the first time, speedy annihi¬ 
lation seems the certain result. 
I have seen the water dyed with blood when 
a large fish was overtaken and literally cut to 
pieces by one still larger, and have seen small 
fry in countless numbers fairly leaving the 
water, in desperate leaps, to escape a pursuing 
school of larger fish, cutting and killing in an 
apparent frenzy of wanton cruelty, 1 he most 
pronounced humanitarian can enjoy sea fish¬ 
ing without a reservation. 
A few of the Florida coast fish can be taken 
with artificial bait, such as the fly, troll or 
squid, but in the main they are only respon¬ 
sive to something edible. 
Of all bait, the most generally popular is the 
shrimp, and after years of experience in its 
use, I cannot yet put one of these delicate little 
marine dainties on a hook without envying the 
fish. The mullet—altogether or dissected—is 
in very general use for everything, from shiner 
to shark, except the sparidae (the barnacle 
eaters), and these latter have a decided pen¬ 
chant for that odd crustacean known as the 
fiddler crab. And what a very odd fellow that 
same fiddler crab is. There is nothing like 
him on land or sea—not even another fiddler. 
A home-made pair of trousers does not possess 
more individuality; a modern cook more in¬ 
dependence, nor is a drunken Celt more pug¬ 
nacious. As it was a brave man who ate the 
first oyster, so it was a brave man that came 
to close quarters with the first fiddler, rearing 
back and waving defiance. He is a recluse 
and a misanthrope. Every move he makes in 
his erratic perigrinations is either startling or 
sinister, and I hold him a man of phlegmatic 
temperament who can enjoy the society of 
the fiddler. I do not intentionally do this 
queer little crustacean an injustice, and am 
willing to concede prejudice, for on our very 
first meeting it took a fall out of me. 
I had gone with a party of friends to a 
justly celebrated fishing resort near where I 
was spending the winter on the west coast. 
The Spanish mackerel were in in countless 
numbers, and after catching them to complete 
satiation, I wandered out to the end of a 
dock where sat an elderly sailor man—a typ¬ 
ical lone fisherman—catching sheepshead. Be¬ 
coming interested, and desiring to indulge in 
this new sport, I received brief but clear 
directions as to what kind of tackle to use 
and a kind offer of bait. A busy half hour s 
work sufficed for procuring and assembling the 
proper outfit, and I presented myself to the 
old gentleman in readiness to share his bait 
and enjoy the new sport. “Fiddlers in the 
bucket,” was his laconic direction. I did not 
know what a fiddler was, but as there was 
only one bucket, concluded that must be the 
bait. Approaching it, I thrust my hand down 
into a mass of gray, red and green therein, 
whereupon there was such an immediate up¬ 
heaval of the contents—snapping, rattling, 
popping and banging about—that I almost dis¬ 
located my arm in jerking my hand out. 
When 1 recovered courage enough to peer 
down into the bucket, there I saw the wicked¬ 
est looking lot of little demons it had ever 
been my misfortune to meet with. They were 
apparently as mad as hornets, and with big 
claws waving defiance, seemed trying to climb 
up to reach the disturber of their peace. 
Waiting until they quieted down a little, I 
tried again, only to beat another hasty retreat 
when they erupted. Three times I tried to 
get one without success, and then, fairly 
bluffed, stood looking down upon the victori¬ 
ous and apparently defiant mass. 1 he old man 
finally turned round: 
“Why don’t you git one?” he politely in¬ 
quired. 
I did not answer at once, having no ex¬ 
cuse ready and the truth not coming easy. 
“I say,” he repeated, “why don’t you git 
one?” 
“I am afraid of them,” I finally faltered, 
feeling a very proper shame at putting him 
to the trouble of catching me a bait after all 
his kindness. But he did not come and catch 
me a bait. With a long look, which I could 
feel, though not see, as I was yet gazing at the 
wild mob of fiddlers, he said, with deliberate 
emphasis, “Then I reckon you had better 
leave them alone.” And that is what I did. 
Remaining late in the season and tiring of 
orthodox fishing, I finally rigged some heavy 
tackle and took to shark fishing. Not the 
half-inch rope, iron hook and chain tackle, but 
just heavy rod and line outfit. 
I do not remember any more strenuous 
sport than that. When a shark feels the hook 
well set, he simply telegraphs, wireless at that, 
himself a distance of fifty to two hundred 
yards, and if the drag is on, your reel will 
generate enough electricity to shock you to 
your shoe soles. After this lightning change 
the fight is simply pull and pull about. If the 
shark is light, you pull it; if heavy, it pulls 
you; and so it goes until one or the other 
gives up or tackle parts. 
I landed several, one or two nearly five feet 
long, but my mental picture of that time shows 
me generally being dragged around the dock 
by big fellows, or else sprinting for the fishing 
tackle dealer to replace line carried off. 
One incident, however, is distinctly remem¬ 
bered: I had lost about half my line, but 
continued fishing with the remainder. I 
hooked a very heavy fellow, and after the 
usual rush, it started straight out to sea. Put¬ 
ting all the weight I dared to on the line, by 
means of the sole leather thumb drag, I sought 
to check it, but could not. With- heavy pulls 
and lunges it went straight on until all my 
line was out, and then still on, dragging me a 
few steps at a time along toward the end of 
the dock, in spite of my bracing back with 
all my strength until there was but a foot or 
so of dock and twenty feet of fresh salt air 
between me and the water. The situation was 
