
A close-up of a thirty 
alarm watch for seven, or to ask 
the hotel telephone operator to 
call me as an additional safeguard, for 
the mocking birds were sufficient, and 
_ once aroused to a realization that 
morning was at hand and that the 
Florida sun was up and starting a 
day’s work, made alarm watches un- 
necessary. 
We gathered at 7:30 for breakfast, 
enough of us to employ eleven motor 
boats, most of them designed to accom- 
modate two or three rods each. The 
St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce 
and Advertising Club had jointly ar- 
ranged the party for a number of big 
league ball players and sporting writ- 
ers, who were there for the early 
Spring ball practice, and the objective 
before us was to take as many amber- 
jack as we could. 
William C. Freeman (‘“Pop,” we call 
him), whose chief diversion is fishing, 
and who with Jim Coad, executive 
vice-president of the St. Petersburg 
Chamber of Commerce, acted as host, 
is pleased to call the amberjack the 
Jack Dempsey of the Deep. You have 
to hook one to get a full appreciation 
of that name. 
We started from Pass-a-grille, where 
the guides had waited, about 9, that 
morning, and you could not imagine 
a more beautiful day—birds singing, 
a feathery breeze, the water ablaze 
with sunshine. 
As we waited for the start, Frank 
Parker Stockbridge was fooling with 
his inevitable camera, attempting to 
get a picture of some gulls snapping 
food in midair as one of the guides, 
wearing only shirt and trousers, tossed 
bits of fish into the air. 
And over in the bay three pelicans 
had arrived for their breakfast. Ugly 
birds, they are, and they fly with little 
grace—as if they are simply out on 
business, and not enjoying it—until 
alte was no need to set my 
’ 
pounder. 
they dive. That part of their flight is 
marvelously swift and graceful. See- 
ing their prey beneath the water, they 
usually volplane into the water nearly 
upside down, and with a swiftness that 
explains the infrequency with which 
they resume their sitting position in 
the water without having something to 
swallow. 
And our friends the gulls linger 
around, hopeful that they may profit 
from the speed and accuracy of the 
pelicans. A pelican rights himself in 
the water, and a gull perches on his 
head, evidently with the hope that 
when the pelican swallows, he will be 
able to snatch the fish. But the peli- 
can holds his enormous bill in the wa- 
ter until the surplus water has drained 
out, then throws his head back, tossing 
the gull off his perch, and the fish has 
disappeared before the gull has recov- 
ered from his surprise. 
The gull is a wonderful optimist. 
Even the most enthusiastic Floridian 
—and the climate down there makes 
them enthusiastic—-is not such an opti- 
mist as_ these 
gulls. I asked 
two of the older 
guides if they 
had ever seen 
a gull get a fish 
from a pelican. 
They never had. 
Perhaps a peli- 
can will choke 
to death, one of 
these days, and 
a gull will get 
a fish. 
And down a 
bit, in the shal- 
low water, a 
crane walks 
along, seriously 
bent upon his 
search from 
The Fighting 
Amberjack of 
Florida 
Characterized As the ‘*Pugilist of 
the Deep,’ the Amberjack Is 
Indeed a Game Fellow 
By CARL HUNT 
whatever may come up with the waves. 
But this isn’t fishing! 
They are putting the bait into the 
well, amidships—grunts, from four to 
six inches long—lively little fellows, 
hard to get, apparently. They justify 
their name from the fact they make 
a grunting noise when out of the 
water. . 
Jim Coad is the last aboard our boat, 
which is the property of Charles R. 
Hall, of St. Petersburg, and driven by 
Mr. Hall’s strapping son, barefooted 
like the regular guides. We take the 
lead and the other ten boats follow, all 
in a long and impressive line. 
After we are out about twelve miles, 
one of the boys on the boat starts to 
take soundings (in about 35 feet of 
water) to find a coral bottom. The 
sounding weight is hollow at the end, 
and he has filled it with soap. Time 
after time, he drops it, only to find par- 
ticles of sand adhering to the soap. 
Each time, when the soap shows sand, 
Jack Hall gives his engine gas and we 
(Continued on page 755) 

Two strikes simultaneously from the same boat. 
