ee) 
Gi 
GULF TARPON a 
SCENES a 
is an eminent practical psy- 
chologist, and a political power 
in his own home town. Not infre- 
quently the two go together. He has 
a smile that is worth a million dollars, 
and his heart is as big as a Texas 
potato patch. He has shot big horn 
sheep in Wyoming, kadiak bears in 
Alaska, and chipmunks on the Mis- 
sion Hills golf course, and he 
thinks nothing of going out on 
Whitefish Lake and annexing 
forty-nine pickerel before 
breakfast. 
But up to a few months ago 
he had never caught a tarpon. 
When it comes to dealing with 
problems of this kind, he pos- 
sesses a one track mind, and in 
our frequent conversations on 
the subject, I found that Ray- 
mond was spending practically 
all of his spare time thinking 
about this comparatively minor 
deficiency. 
He would invite me to take luncheon 
with him at the City Club, not be- 
cause he thought I might be hungry, 
or because little Anna is the best 
waitress west of the Mississippi River, 
but because he wanted to discuss 
Florida house-boats, and their rela- 
tionship to tarpon fishing. 
Rime JAMES DE LANO 
AX? when he brought his wife and 
his charming daughter to call on 
us, he would sit and politely talk 
about golf scores, and the advantages 
of the Country Club District, and the 
horror of the Cromwell for Governor 
boom, only a few minutes at a time. 
Then he would diplomatically bring 
the conversation around to deep sea 
monsters, and the innate possibilities 
of a vacation at Useppa Island, or 
Long Key, or Aransas Pass, or even 
far off Tampico. And when he stood 
up, with his hands in his pockets, and 
his legs spread apart, and gazed at 
the beautifully mounted but rather 
obese form of my son Dick’s first 
Silver King, or, rather, Silver Queen, 
the only stuffed fish which my wife 
has ever allowed to enter our little 
home, his eyes would glisten, and his 
breath would come and go in short 
IILUALUULOTLUSUPN DIOP 
This is the tale of a metamorphosis. A fresh- 
water angler is introduced to Aransas Pass. 
Under the spell of clear, blue skies and fly- 
ing salt spray, he becomes a tarpon angler. 
Doctor Sutton tells about it and in a helpful 
way weaves into his narrative much prac- 
tical information concerning tarpon fishing. 
IIIT LVN. 
pants, just like that of a New Yorker 
who for the first time in four or five 
years gazes on a virgin bottle of 
Scotch whiskey. 
In desperate cases of this kind I 
have found it best to keep quiet and 
play the role of innocent bystander. 
Then I have at least the appearance 
of being blameless. 
UT two days before Dick and I 
were to leave for our annual va- 
cation at Aransas Pass, De Lano 
dropped into the office, and I could see 
that his spirit was troubled. I thought 
he probably wanted only a prescrip- 
tion but I soon found that it was 
not medical services at all that he 
required. 
What he really needed was moral 
support. He is a construction engineer, 


The Initiation 
of Raymond 
A Tarpon Story of 
Aransas Pass 
By RICHARD L. SUTTON, M.D. 
Where the rough granite jettics run far out to sea, 
And the water is clear and blue, 
I think a big tarpon is waiting for me, 
And I know one is waiting for you. 
So pack the old duffle, and‘ oil up your reel, 
And take a good look at your rod; 
We'll spend a few days at the mouth of the Pass, 
With water, and sky—and God. 
—Lays of Aransas Pass. 
and builds ten story brick flats by the 
gross. Just at the moment, he was 
in the midst of an intensive building 
campaign, and the carpenters and 
floor scrapers were throwing rocks at 
each other, and the plasterers had 
just struck for twenty-seven dollars 
a day. So, like the philosopher that 
he is, he decided to go fishing. Dick 
and I were delighted, for a_ better 
sportsman never lived, and it 
was a simple matter to wire 
Captain Ed Cotter to secure an 
additional guide and oarsman 
for the party. 
Forty-eight hours later we 
were Texas bound, and a thou- 
sand-mile ride brought us to 
the little city of Aransas Pass, 
that gate to a piscatorial 
paradise. 
Two of our former boatmen, 
James Ellis and Godfrey Rob- 
erts, were waiting at the Port 
Aransas wharf to greet us, and 
a skilful and capable young 
man had been secured’ to handle the 
third skiff. 
All of the tarpon fishing at Port 
Aransas is done from small boats, al- 
though launches are used in trans- 
porting the fishermen to and from the 
mouth of the Pass. The deep channel 
is kept clear by the use of huge 
dredgers, and is about two miles long, 
and a quarter of a mile wide. Later- 
ally, it is guarded by jetties, composed 
of huge granite boulders, which extend 
upward out of the water for a distance 
of four or five feet. During the 
tarpon season, from May until Novem- 
ber, the big fish feed along the inside 
and outside of these walls, and are 
caught by trolling with mullet. 
The outside of the south jetty is the 
best territory, but the water is fre- 
quently both rough and muddy, and 
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