
Leaping tarpon 
W YOULD any ardent fisherman, 
knowing what was promised, 
even though he happens to be 
a more or less busy practicing lawyer, 
resist an invitation like the one I re- 
ceived to tackle the denizens of the Gulf 
of Mexico, and its deep subsidiary 
waters? Of course, being a weak mor- 
tal when such invitations are at hand, 
business must suffer and I accepted. 
The good ship Buccaneer should first 
be mentioned, because unless one has 
seen her portly looking architecture, the 
luxury of her accommodations cannot 
be properly appreciated. Her architects 
were experienced navigators of shallow 
bayous, canals and lakes, which inter- 
sect the section leading to the fishing 
and hunting grounds. They also know 
that solid comfort, rather than speed, 
is the aim of the “sports” as the Cajan 
guides call the city fishermen. 
I would call the Buccaneer a house- 
boat, because one can live on her and 
not suffer any of the usual hardships 
that, unfortunately, go with summer- 
time fishing cruises; such as, for in- 
stance, the plague of mosquitoes, nar- 
now and hot sleeping quarters and 
limited space for stretching one’s limbs. 
Suffice it to say about her appearance, 
that she is a good sized, flat bottomed 
boat, with a roomy cabin and a power- 
ful enough gas engine to drive her at 
the rate of nine miles an hour. De- 
signed, principally, to transport her 
owners, the members of a hunting and 
fishing club, from the city to the club 
house; just thirty miles distant. She 
was not built for a cruiser, but some 
members, ardent followers of the pisca- 
torial art, made her available for that 
purpose by adding on the top deck a 
large wire screened house, useful for 
sleeping quarters in the summertime. 
HE Buccaneer docks on a canal 
within ten minutes automobile ride 
from the heart of a city of four hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants. There is 
where we found her. “We,” being my 
host, Doc, a member of the club (than 
whom no better companion for a fishing 
trip could be found) and yours truly. 
When we arrived, the Buccaneer was 
fully provisoned and stocked with ice 
and other things necessary for a four 
day trip; even a medical kit for snake 
bite. : 
It does not require a too vivid imagi- 
nation to picture the famed route of 
Evangeline, made immortal by Long- 
fellow, from the scenic trip we travelled 
through canals, bayous and lakes to the 
club house. Rank semi-tropical shrubs 
and weeds; impenetrable vines and 
beautiful wild flowers in profusion along 
the banks; topped by giant cypress trees 
festooned with sombre gray moss, col- 
lectively, almost obscuring the skies, 
make the whole trip seem as though one 
were traversing a cavernous, or sub- 
terranean passage, with just enough 
softened daylight gleaming through 
this dense growth to cast ghostly sha- 
dows across the path we were traveling. 
LL signs of the civilization of a 
great city soon faded away. Within 
one half hour of embarking, the flutter 
of a kingfisher; the dropping off of a 
log of a terrapin; the slow submerging 
of an alligator; the jumping into the 
water of a sleepy bull frog, or the sinu- 
ous trail ahead of a mocassin crossing 
the stream, were the only signs of life, 
except for the chug-chug-chug of the 
gas engine, there were no other noises 
to disturb the weird stillness of these 
cypress swamps. This is the same 
scenery that a certain noted local 
painter has made into water colors and 
oil paintings now found on the walls of 
all lovers of wild-and primeval nature, 
who have been fortunate enough to dis- 
cover his art. 
You, who only know of the hills and 
high rolling country and forests of tall 
and stately pines that stand up high on 
the sky line, free at their base of en- 
A Bit of 
Southern Angling 
—and a Word on Unwise 
- 
Drainage Projects 
By EUGENE J. McGIVNEY 
tangling shrubs, rank weeds and climb- 
ing vines, cooled by tumbling and sing- 
ing streams of clear white water, can 
from such inspiration, naturally, think 
only of the invigorating and vivacious 
things in life. 
OU who know only of such healthy 
climes cannot imagine, without be- 
ing subjected to its subduing influence, 
the mystic effect of the sombre atmos- 
phere of a black water cypress swamp. 
Its effect is as though you had been 
reading Dante, or, you might experience 
the same sensations I felt in trav- 
ersing the caverns of the mammoth 
Cave of Kentucky. A pall comes over 
your active mind and passively your 
thoughts are: what an ephemeral ex- 
istence life is, after all. What does the 
short period of a human life amount 
to in the ages that are represented in 
the growth of the gigantic cypress and 
oak trees; monuments of nature and 
markers of time in this dismal swamp. 
The thought, hovers over you in gazing 
at their circumference, how long must 
it have taken for these monarchs to at- 
tain their majestic height and suprem- 
acy over the weeds and shrubs and 
vines that lie at their feet. Weeds, 
which die in the Fall of every year to be 
born over again in the Spring and with 
renewed vigor, stretch out over all 
available space their luxurious growth; 
their dark leaves and their sinuous ten- 
dons in a tireless endeavor to hide all 
daylight from the surroundings. 
D°c: in a thoughtful mood, said to 
me, “is it not strange that this rank 
undergrowth of weeds and vines should 
grow so profusely each year, and yet 
the farmer by fertilizing and intensively 
cultivating his crops cannot rival the 
density and vigor of these weeds?” The 
answer ventured was that by the law 
of nature, the weeds, dropping their 
leaves and accumulating their falling 
stalks to rot and decay, furnish their 
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