“Well, Sir! Once— 
v. 
“A shark came near getting me in trouble, 
and with a big man, too,” said the next man to 
the front. “At least I guess it was a shark, as 
I know of nothing in the water whose first rush 
is as savage. My wife and I were spending the 
winter on the west coast, fishing whenever the 
weather would permit. The little woman was 
having her first experience, and was having such 
good luck that she was getting quite cocky over 
her skill as an angler, and rather inclined to 
give advice and make suggestions to others. 
There came to the hotel a big fellow, six feet 
four, weighing near 300. He was a fresh water 
fisherman, had fished for everything from muskie 
to brook trout, but had never been on salt water 
before. He went down on the dock with me 
the first day and was much interested in the 
variety of sport offered. I was trying for chan¬ 
nel bass with a heavy handline, and got two fish 
that day, one weighing nearly fifteen pounds. 
The big man begged to accompany me next day, 
and I gladly accepted his company, as he was a 
good fellow, college man and all round sports¬ 
man. We went after noon and our better halves 
were to join us later on. I took my usual out¬ 
fit, and he brought a fine trolling line, such as 
he had been using in fresh water. I suggested 
that the fine line would cut his hands pretty 
badly if he got a heavy fish on, but he said he 
was used to it and would take chances. I caught 
a shiner for each, baited up and got the big lines 
out at once. For some time we had no strikes, 
and then I caught a small grouper. A little later 
my friend had a good strike, but did not hook 
his fish. When I got him baited up again he 
took his stand on the edge of the dock, holding 
the line firmly in both hands. A coil of slack 
lay at his feet, and the end was tied to a large 
spike in the edge of the dock. He was a ‘broth 
of a boy’ and looked fit to handle anything m 
or out of the water. 
“ ‘I’ve got a strike,’ he suddenly called. ‘Shall 
I give it time, or jerk quick?’ 
“‘Time,’ I said. ‘Wait, I’ll tell you when.’ 
Just then our wives approached, and were at 
once interested. As the line straightened out I 
gave the word, and with a mighty swing the 
hook struck home. It must have been a five-foot 
shark, and the holder of the speed record that 
he hooked. There was a hiss, a sharp tang like 
the snapping of a violin string, a grunt from 
the big man, and it was all over. As the big 
fellow stood there looking down at his hands, 
burned to the quick, as though trying to realize 
what had happened, the amateur rushed in where 
veterans would have feared to so much as look. 
“‘What did you let him get away for?’ she 
shouted. ‘Why didn’t you hold him? You ought 
to have held the line and played him—worn him 
out. Why, my goodness! You ought not to 
let such a fish as that get away!’ 
“She was not through, but the look he gave 
her caused her to pause. I thought he was go¬ 
ing to box her ears, and while standing ready 
to defend her, really sympathized with him. 
“ ‘My dear madam,’ he said, and his voice was 
like cold steel, ‘may I assure you that I did not 
let that fish get away—that a steel cable could 
not have held it? Glance at my hands and see 
the wounds I suffered in trying to check it, and 
say whether you think I let it get away,’ he 
said in a final burst of sarcastic wrath, and tak¬ 
ing his wife’s arm, he stalked off. They left that 
night, and I was glad of it, for I could never 
have felt easy in his presence again.” 
Fishing in Natal. 
I was putting up my tackle, when one of the 
party inquired: “Did you ever see flyingfish in 
Indian River?” The man addressed promptly 
replied in the negative. 
“No flyingfish in Indian River,” said another. 
“Flyingfish are only found around the South 
Sea Islands.” 
“So I thought, until a few years ago, when I 
was called upon to verify a story of flyingfish 
in the Indian River,” said the man who had 
asked the question. “Before the railroad was 
finished further than Rockledge it was a delight¬ 
ful trip down the east coast on one of the boats, 
provided you were in no hurry and did not mind 
getting hung up on a bar occasionally. As one 
known to be pretty familiar with the east coast, 
I was called upon by two young women, just 
returned from a trip down Indian River, to 
verify their story of flyingfish there. I thought 
a moment, and then felt sure I had it, the great 
mullet, jumping again and again with long leaps 
from the water. I explained that they looked 
like flyingfish, but were not, but wonderful 
jumpers. But they would not hear it. ‘We know 
them,’ was the positive reply. ‘They are not 
what we mean. We saw fish rise from the water 
and fly off,’ said one. ‘Fly high in the air,’ said 
the other, most positively. ‘Clear out over the 
land, and out of sight,’ said the first without 
batting an eye. 
“I knew the young ladies were truthful, and 
meant what they said, and also—more marvelous 
—believed it, too, but what on earth they could 
be talking about I did not know. Fish rise from 
the water and fly out of sight over the land! I 
did not remember any harder nut than that to 
crack in Baron Munchausen’s repertoire. I ques¬ 
tioned and cross questioned, but never moved 
them. They had seen it all with their own eyes 
and were half inclined to feel offended because 
I had not seen it, too. I finally solved the puz¬ 
zle. They had seen fish hawks rise from the 
water and fly off to the woods with their prey 
without having been close enough to see them 
distinctly, and without having observed their 
lightning-like dash into the water, and had 
identified them as flyingfish. I am pretty sure 
I reached the correct solution, but the young 
women have never been wholly satisfied, and I 
do not rank as high as an authority with them 
since they saw flyingfish in the inside Florida 
waters, and I did not.” 
Lewis Hopkins. 
In the British Sea Anglers’ Society’s Quar¬ 
terly, C. E. Merrin writes as follows of the fish¬ 
ing to be had in Natal, South Africa: 
In order to understand the sort of fishing we 
get at Durban, I must explain that practically 
all the sporting fishing is done from the piers, 
the rocks and the shore. The sea is generally so 
heavy that it is too dangerous to go out in a 
small boat, and though occasionally parties are 
taken out in a tug, they are made up from all 
classes of people, some of them very bad sailors, 
so that in rough weather they are miserable 
and make things uncomfortable for others. 
In order to fish with success it is necessary to 
learn to cast very far, so as to get well clear 
of the rocks and concrete boulders at the feet 
of the piers and along the shore. We all use 
very long rods of male bamboo (about twelve 
feet), which we make up ourselves by whipping 
at short intervals so as to stiffen them, and 
mounting them with porcelain rings, which do 
not wear or cut the line so much as those made 
of wire. My reel is one of eight inches in 
diameter and has a six-inch drum, so that for 
every revolution eighteen inches of line is cast 
off or reeled up as the case may be, and I think 
the size of the reel is a very important matter 
in this class of fishing, as when a fish runs to¬ 
ward you, you can always keep the line tight by 
reeling very fast. A big fish generally makes 
out to sea as quickly as it can, and when it is 
checked usually turns back again and makes to¬ 
wards the pier, so that if you cannot line in 
quickly and keep the line taut, the fish will 
make a loop in it and then it gets its tail round 
it and snaps something. I have seen this hap¬ 
pen with a six-inch Nottingham reel. A fish 
after getting 150 yards of line out turned back 
and came in suddenly. The fisherman thought 
the fish was lost and was winding in the slack 
line when there was a sudden jerk and the fish 
broke the line and departed in earnest. My reel 
holds about 300 yards of the usual No. 4 line, 
and I have had a fish on that took out about 
250 yards of this before it could be stopped. My 
reel is held to the rod by a little contrivance of 
my own invention, as we find that with the large 
fish an ordinary holder is liable to work loose 
so that the reel falls off, to obviate which we 
have always had to tie our reels on, but with 
my invention there is no necessity for this. The 
fish we catch may be any weight from five 
pounds upward. The largest landed yet by a 
rod was a shark of 227 pounds, another of near¬ 
ly the same weight took the angler three hours 
to land, and then he could only do so by beach¬ 
ing it. We find the single strand piano wire, 
galvanized, the best for casts and traces, and we 
use no booms because they would be liable to 
catch in the rocks in hauling in, and when the 
line was cast out they would merely lie on the 
ground and be of no practical utility. We gen¬ 
erally cast about seventy-five yards with trace 
and bait, and my longest cast on shore on the 
flat was eighty-three yards. 
