Catching a Record Tampico Tarpon. 
Monday morning we decided to fish at the 
mouth of the Tuxpam Canal, and at 6 o'clock 
we were merrily chugging down the river in the 
Tal Vez, towing our fishing boat in our wake. 
To our great disappointment the tide was just 
beginning to flood, and although as a rule the 
ebb tide is the best for fishing at the canal, we 
were encouraged to try our luck by the jump¬ 
ing of countless small fish, indicating that there 
were probably larger fish in pursuit. Ihis proved 
to be the case, for we had not made more than 
a couple of turns across the ripple at the mouth 
of the canal when something struck my hus¬ 
band’s hook with terrific force, running some 
distance with the line before it could be checked. 
There was no jump when the strike came, and 
of course we concluded that it could not be a 
tarpon. “It is a shark, senor; it is a shark ! 
Have a care that he does not break your line!" 
shouted Apolonio, our boat boy, and started to 
row up the canal in the hope of gradually tiring 
the creature out or of towing it to shallow water 
where possibly we could get rid of it. 
We had rowed in this way for several minutes 
when, to our surprise, the head of a tarpon sud¬ 
denly came out of the water and shook itself, 
trying to get free from the sharp something that 
was pulling at its jaw. Then, for the first time, 
it seemed to realize that it might be in some 
danger, and out spun the line for 200 feet, both 
the drag and the thumb brake being absolutely 
powerless against the strength of that magnificent 
rush. Then the fight began. My husband threw 
all the leverage possible upon the rod and began 
to pump it up and down. 1 he tip bent and 
straightened, and inch by inch the reel took up 
the slack as it was gained. When the tarpon 
got within about fifty feet of the boat, or nearly 
up to the double line, the tension gave a little, 
a signal that he was going to jump. The leap 
was sidewise and not more than a foot and a 
half from the water, quite unlike the quick, per¬ 
pendicular jump of the tarpon, but it was suffi¬ 
cient for us to see that he was of extraordinary 
size. This was the only jump that he made 
throughout the fight. 
Just after the jump my husband, who was 
very anxious for me to experience the sensation 
of catching a very large tarpon, insisted upon 
my taking the rod for awhile. “Now pump 
him,” he said, and pump him I did with all my 
strength, with the result that instead of gaining 
anything it merely inspired him for another rush 
and off he went with all the line that had previ¬ 
ously been gained. My thumbs felt as if they 
were breaking, particularly the one on the brake, 
but I was not willing to give him up until I had 
regained some of the lost ground. I started to 
pump again, throwing all the weight I could upon 
the rod to get the tip up and taking in line little 
by little as I lowered it. The muscles in my 
arms began to ache insufferably, and after get¬ 
ting in about fifty feet of line I was obliged to 
give him up again. Once more before he was 
finally conquered I worked upon him for a few 
minutes, but I found that eventually I could not 
respond to my inexorable companion’s instruc¬ 
tions to “pump him.” 
So it went. Time after time he would be 
almost on to the double line, and then apparently 
with no diminution of strength off he would 
rush, making the reel sing and the thumb brake 
splutter feebly on the wet line. After almost 
an hour of this kind of warfare he seemed to 
tire slightly and changed his tactics. Instead of 
rushing away with the line and exhausting his 
strength, he turned with his head directly away 
from the boat and lay still, making it almost 
impossible to pull him in any, and giving him 
an opportunity to rest. However, in this way he 
laid himself liable to having his nose pulled out 
of water, and when this had happened a few 
times, the noble fish had to yield himself a little 
to the ceaseless pull of his enemy. 
By this time we thought that he was sufficiently 
under control to take out to the river, where we 
could find a place to land him and measure him 
and turn him loose, so we worked him down to 
the mouth of the canal. The deeper water of 
the river seemed to give him fresh life, and he 
made several superb rushes before we could 
finally land him on the beach. We pulled him 
up with the utmost care in order not to injure 
him, as it is our custom to turn our tarpon back, 
but one of his gills had been cut by the hook. 
We measured him roughly with the oar and our 
boatman and a crowd of spectators who had 
gathered on the bank exclaimed that he was 
seven feet and a half long, maybe eight feet. 
This did not excite us particularly, as we did 
not then know what the record tarpon measured. 
It might have been eight or nine feet as far as 
we knew, and we were chiefly concerned in sav¬ 
ing the life of the valiant fighter. We had him 
put back in the river, but when we saw that the 
blood from his gill was staining the water, we 
knew it would be more humane to take him out 
than to have him torn to pieces by sharks. 
The body of the beautiful silver king was care¬ 
fully placed in the bottom of the boat and cov¬ 
ered with damp newspapers to prevent the sun 
from tarnishing his scales, and we towed him 
back to the wharf. There he was borne by two 
men to the hotel. We went down to La Barra 
for lunch and fished in various places in the 
afternoon and arrived at the hotel at about 6 
o’clock. Imagine our surprise when we saw a 
crowd standing around our tarpon as he lay in 
state in the patio of the hotel. A friend of ours 
came up beaming: “Congratulations, Billy,” he 
said; “you have broken the record.” This was 
the first we knew of it and it partially consoled 
us for causing the death of an innocent creature. 
The holder of the former record lives at Tam¬ 
pico. He is Mr. Wilson, the British Consul at 
that place, and after dinner he came over to 
help us measure our catch and to offer his con¬ 
gratulations. His record tarpon was seven feet 
two inches in length and weighed 202 x / 2 pounds 
and is at present in the British Museum in Liver¬ 
pool. Our record is three and one-half inches 
longer and thirty pounds heavier and is to adorn 
the office of the Hotel Southern as a challenge 
to all who may fish there to “beat it if they can.” 
This measurement of seven feet five and one- 
half inches was made from a line drawn be¬ 
tween the tips of the tail to the end of the nose 
with the jaw closed. Length from the longest 
tip of tail to the jaw when open is seven feet 
eight inches; girth, forty-seven inches. Tarpon 
rod used is seven feet in length with 200 yards 
of twenty-seven thread Irish linen line, regula¬ 
tion wire leader, hook and reel. 
A. D. McLaren. 
Short Gills in Trout. 
U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, Tupelo, Miss., 
May 8 .—Editor Forest and Stream: Adverting 
to the inquiry of Robert B. Lawrence concern¬ 
ing short-gilled trout in Forest and Stream of 
May 6 will say that the trouble is not a disease, 
but a deformity, or rather a malformation, and 
that otherwise the fish are healthy and not un¬ 
wholesome. I am reminded of an amusing oc¬ 
currence at the Bozeman, Mont., hatchery in this 
connection. The employes were taking eggs from 
brook trout one cold day in November, when 
one remarked: “Here is another 'jewfish, the 
second I have stripped to-day.” “What do you 
mean by jewfish?” asked another. “These short- 
gilled trout,” he replied. “But why call them 
jewfish?” the other man persisted. “Because 
they have circumcised gill covers.” I may add 
that if not circumcised they are circumscribed. 
James A. Henshall. 
Kalamazoo, Mich., May 9. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: In your issue of May 6 is a query by 
Mr. Lawrence, regarding diseased brook trout. 
I beg to state from the description that the fish 
are not diseased and are absolutely good for 
table use. 
Fish of the trout family having inflammation 
of the gills—which is the same as tuberculosis 
in warm-blooded animals—very rarely survive to 
make fish large enough for table use. 
Trout with defective gill covers are very com¬ 
mon. One of the best known foreign fishcul- 
turists attributes this condition to fungus in the 
fry stage. I can state absolutely that it is caused 
by continual in-breeding, and it occurs only in a 
small way where care is taken to get new blood 
every year. 
In my twenty-five years’ angling I have fre¬ 
quently caught trout with one or both gills bare 
and numerous other monstrosities. 
Albert Rosenberg. 
British Tournament. 
At a recent meeting of the British Amateur 
Fly- and Bait-Casting Club, it was decided to 
hold a tournament this season. The dates, July 
21 and 22, are tentative. Cups similar to those 
adopted by the Anglers’ Club of New York, will 
be given as first prizes. The old rule of ounce- 
per-foot has been abandoned and the American 
five-ounce rule for fly-rods adopted. This allows 
three-quarters of an ounce for a metal reelseat. 
