much of the fishing is done outside 
the north wall. When the weather is 
promising, the top of the jetty is lined 
with amateur and market fishermen, 
in quest of sheepshead, mackerel, and 
other fish. Cane poles are used, the 
jongest that I have ever seen, with 
shrimp for bait. The ubiquitous shark 
is always on the job, hungry and alert, 
and woe betide the struggling finny 
captive that manages to fight its way 
into deep water! For this reason, 
every effort is made to keep the tarpon 
as near the jetties as possible after 
they are hooked. Sharks hesitate to 
rush into the shallow water, where 
they can be seen. 
12 is worth a trip to Aransas Pass 
to sit and watch one of your friends 
handle his first tarpon. They go forth 
in fear and trembling, and, if success- 
ful, Foch, at the end of the world war, 
could not return more triumphant. 
Dick is only 15, but he always man- 
ages to break up all of the tackle in 
the trunk. One July day in 1921, he 
lost fourteen hooks and nearly a thou- 
sand feet of line in nine hours, so I 
have learned to take no chances with 
him. Mr. Ellis says it is because he 
thinks too “abruptly.” I now start 
him out with a seventy-two thread line, 
and a 9-0 Vom Hoff reel, and if he 
should tie into a whale, or a thousand- 
pound porpoise, it is the fish’s fault 
and not mine. 



Mr. De Lano 9g 
was similarly | 
equipped. Per- 
sonally, I pre- 
fer an eighteen 
thread line for 
the first few 
fish, and then, 
if they are bit- (|. 
ing freely, I | 
enhance. toma 
nine thread. It | 
goes. against 
the grain to 
use cobweb 
tackle and hook 
only two tar- 
pon a week— A 
and lose both 
of them. As my 
old friend, Dr. Charles Gosney, once 
said, when I expostulated with him for 
shooting a mudhen on the water, “Ah, 
let’s get a mess first, and after that 
you can bang away at them in the 
air as much as you want to!” 
NATIVE 
UT in De lLano’s case, I had 
reckoned wrongly. The first day 
he hooked three, and landed two of 
them, handling his rod like an expert. 
The second morning he fared forth 
with a reel full of eighteen thread line, 
and after the third day he stuck to 
blue-button tackle. 
Verily, had he remained at Aransas 
a fortnight longer, I believe he would 
have been dragging them in on Clark’s 
spool cotton! 
Not content with nine hours of troll- 
ing, he spent the spare daylight trying 
to get pictures of leaping fish. More 
luck than skill is required for this, 
however, and he did not come out 
nearly so well as he deserved. 
Both Dick and he are enthusi- 
astic swimmers, but Dick had been 
around sharks before and Raymond 
hadn’t. 
I shall never forget the frozen, 
staring expression on the face of 
QYOVVUELAVUDUUUVIONITETNSTYUUTEU EOE 
MR. DE LANO WITH A GOOD SPECI- 
MEN. THIS IS AN UNRETOUCHED 
PHOTO, THE BLUR BEING CAUSED BY 
THE SUNLIGHT REFLECTED FROM 
THE FISH’S SCALES 
TIIITUUIVUUTUUTAUIVUUVAEOUCT UTE 
De Lano’s guide one morning, when 
we pulled up to where he was sit- 
ting, alone, in the boat. “Where 
is Mr. De Lano?” I asked. “He, 
he’s over there,’ pointing to a 
break in the jetty, “taking a swim,” 
The little hair that I posses as- 
sumed an erect posture on top of 
my head. The water was alive with 

ete bid 
JETTY FISHERMAN WITH HIS THIRTY-FOOT CANE 
POLE 
sharks. But I could not persuade my 
friend to desist from his ablutions. 
That night, while a group of us 
were sitting on the hotel veranda, the 
subject was again broached, and there 
was much argument, pro and con. 
DE LANO was emphatic. “I have 
never read an authentic account 
of a shark biting a man,” he declared, 
“and I intend to bathe off the end of 
that jetty as long as I’m here.” Old 
Billy Jackson, long, lank, lean and 
weatherbeaten, and a trifle tobacco 
stained, happened to be passing. 
I called to him. “Did you ever hear 
of a shark biting a man,” we asked. 
“Naw, I never heard of a shark bitin’ 
a man,” he replied, “but one et my 
brother.” 
The next day, I happened to be 
passing No. 2 Buoy just as De Lano, 
clad only in his birthday suit, slipped 
into the water. A moment later, we 
heard a wild yell, and, glancing over 
my shoulder, I saw Raymond scram- 
bling up the slippery rocks, as fast as 
a set of closely trimmed toe nails 
would let him. “I’ve been bit,’ he 
yelled, loudly and ungrammatically, as 
he massaged his right gluteal muscle, 
in the neighborhood of where his right 
hip pocket should have been. My 
boatman grinned, and nodded toward 
the jetty, alongside of which a big 
school of kingfish, ten thousand 
strong, rippled the shallow water in 
search of food. 
Bet we shall never be able to con- 
vince Ray De Lano that he was not 
nipped by a bloodthirsty, man-eating 
hammer-headed head. 
Aransas Pass, like all other fishing 
grounds, has its on and off days. I 
once labored faithfully for thirty 
hours without getting even a nibble. 
But if the atmospheric conditions 
are at all propitious, some one in the 
(Continued on page 114) 
