STRIPED MULLET--SHARKS--BIRD LIFE
STRIPED MULLET (_Mugil cephalus_)
The adventitious interest that attaches to this active fish is that to
it we owe all our tarpon, for the tarpon baits are cut from its white
stomach, four from each fish. It seems identical with the British grey
mullet, a similar slimy fish which feeds by a kind of suction among the
sea herbage. There is, however, this difference that the Florida mullet
is for ever jumping on all sides of your boat in shallow water, and is
surrounded by many enemies, whereas the grey mullet at home has, at any
rate in the grown-up stage, few enemies beyond man, whom it is generally
able to elude. The same fish in Florida seas has so many foes, and is
bait for so many monsters, that the wonder is it survives in such
quantities.
During the tarpon season the one family of fishermen at Boca Grand are
fully occupied in procuring sufficient mullet to provide bait for the
anglers. Thirty fishers would require about 150 mullet a day. It is,
therefore, scarcely surprising to hear that mullet are seriously
decreasing in numbers. I very much doubt whether several other fish
would not produce equally killing baits. I can answer for the moon fish
and its allies, also the devil-fish and rays in general, whose
milky-white under sides were tried with success.
SHARKS AND SHARK-FISHING
I conclude this little book with a few notes on sharks and on bird life
on that coast. Shark-fishing can now and then be very good fun, although
the fish are vermin. After all, we do not eat tarpon, and the saw of the
sawfish makes as good a trophy as the scale of the great herring. I am
not, of course, for one moment comparing the one fish or fishing with
the other, but on days when it is too rough to get afloat, or when the
tide does not serve, it is better to catch great sharks from the beach
or pier than to loaf on shore doing nothing.
Having named the sawfish (_Pristis pectinatus_), I will start off with
the picture of a fine specimen, measuring 18 feet, which was taken on a
night-line set for sharks. It moves slowly and prowls on the bottom,
close in shore, for food. A sucking fish was still adhering to this one
when caught. For all its shark-like appearance, the sawfish is in
reality one of that kindred group, the rays, of which some pictures have
already
[Illustration: A CAPTURED SAWFISH TO WHICH A PERSISTENT SUCKER STILL
CLINGS.]
[Illustration: A HAMMERHEAD SHARK. A SAVAGE AND REPULSIVE FISH.]
[Illustration: THIS SHARK SEIZED ANOTHER ALREADY HOOKED AND WAS ITSELF
CAUGHT.]
been given. It must, of course, be distinguished from the swordfish,
which is more closely allied to the mackerel, and which has a long
pointed weapon without teeth on its edges.
Any one wishing to catch a sawfish on the rod must seek such weird game
in the isolated deep holes in the lagoons and shallows. The average
depth will not be more than three or four feet, but every now and then
the lead will go down into a much deeper hole, and there lie the
sawfish. A well-known American angler caught one weighing 700 lb. in
this way. The chief food of the sawfish is said to consist of horseshoe
crabs, but it also in all probability slashes round with its great saw
and stuns sufficient fish for a meal. I have seen young sawfish out
there with the scales of smaller fish impaled on the teeth of their
saws. Evidently these teeth must grow blunt with age, for piercing a
fish scale is a feat that would certainly be beyond the saw-teeth in all
the larger specimens that have come under my notice.
On an earlier page I have given the portrait of a baby hammerhead shark,
drawing the reader’s attention to the fact that the “hammer” was not yet
developed. This difference in two stages of growth may be appreciated by
a comparison with the subject of the accompanying photograph, in which
the curious hammer, with an eye at either end, is plainly seen. The
hammerhead shark (_Sphyrna zygaena_) is a voracious species, yet when
swimming after a ship it has all the graceful, undulating movement of
the family.
I do not profess to know these vermin severally by name, but two or
three pictures of some that were captured during my stay may be of
interest. The subject of the first was, like most of the tribe, a
cannibal, for it took another shark (though I do not know that it was of
the same species) that had been hooked, and the two were secured by the
coloured “gentleman” in the picture.
This incident of its swallowing a fish already hooked reminds me of
another. An angler had to return to England rather suddenly, but he was
anxious to complete his catch of 100 tarpon for the season. He had
already caught 99, and but half an hour remained before his boat left.
He hooked the hundredth, luckily enough, but it was promptly seized by a
shark, and it still looked as if his century would not be completed,
when he very cleverly landed shark and all, with a few minutes to spare,
and thus made up his total of tarpon.
The end of May is the time when sharks most plague the tarpon fisher,
and is consequently the time for shark fishing. The best way is to bait
a large hook with a whole split fish made fast to a long stout line.
Then you fling this well out from the Lighthouse Jetty, leave a good
coil of slack, and make the end fast. Before very long, the slack line
begins to creep out, then rushes, and you must, if the shark is a large
one, call all the help you can muster, for the fight will be a good one.
All hands play him from the beach, and, with a little give and take, he
generally comes in with a run, a nasty-looking brute perhaps
[Illustration: EXTRACTING A FIRMLY EMBEDDED HOOK FROM A SHARK.]
[Illustration: ALL HANDS GIVE THE SHARK A MIGHTY HEAVE ASHORE.]
fifteen feet long. If you catch a great leopard shark, or man-eater
(_Carcharodon carcharias_), the white belly of which is seen in the
photograph facing the following page, it may be worth while ripping him
up to see whether there are any boots within, or perchance even more
personal signs of human occupation. In one of these a sea-lion weighing
100 lb. was once found on the California coast, but you will be far more
likely to come across a quantity of horseshoe crabs.
From this last shark figured we took three or four young ones, quite
ready to swim away if they had been given the chance. They were not, for
it is no part of humaneness to spare sharks.
BIRD LIFE.
The bird life of Boca Grand is not sufficiently studied by those who
spend their holiday there, so intent is everyone on fishing. Yet it is
most interesting, what the plume hunters have left of it. America is the
great land of waste as well as of production, and the egrets and other
beautiful fowl are surely following the bison. On fine, still days, when
there is great splashing of carangoid and other fish, the pelicans are
soon astir, dashing into the shoals and putting them to rout with heavy
loss. Then, too, may be seen the little kittiwake gulls settling
unmolested on the heads and backs of the great birds, and always
expectant of the scanty leavings that they never seem to get.
Pelicans are nowadays so scarce at Boca Grand that any small peculiarity
is certain to be noticed whenever one puts in an appearance. I recollect
one coming along one day with his pouch slit from side to side and
hanging loose. What dreadful battle had given him such a gash could only
be guessed, but he seemed to grow thinner and tamer and more hungry
every day, for every fish that he caught forthwith dropped out through
the gap. At length, however, he seemed to rise to the occasion, and as
soon as he caught a fish, he would clap his beak close to his breast and
coax his victim down his throat. The process was slow, but sure, and in
a few weeks this pelican was well
[Illustration: LEOPARD SHARK.]
and strong again, and the gap in his pouch had to all appearance healed.
There is an island just off the coast measuring scarce one hundred yards
in any direction, and thereon stands a pelicans’ rookery. There these
great confiding, prehistoric-looking, silly birds used to gather until
they were all but shot out by plume-hunters at 25 cents. the skin. And
here, in the highest trees, some of the great birds still congregate,
their curious webbed feet looking most incongruous as they grasp the
swaying branches. The neighbouring island, somewhat larger in extent, is
the home of innumerable cormorants and herons, both blue and white, all
nesting in the tall black mangroves, and so tame that you may approach
to within six yards of the little blue herons. Yet on all sides are the
tiny corpses of deserted little birds, their parents in the breeding
plumage ruthlessly shot down to deck women’s hats! The thin end of the
wedge of bird protection has, it is true, been inserted, but the law is
almost inoperative in these out-of-the-way regions, and the slaughter
proceeds unchecked. And so the beautiful American woodlands are being
denuded of their unrivalled bird life in order that every mistress and
every maid may dangle “osprey” plumes over their heads.
With my pictures, then, end my notes, and I am only too conscious of
their meagreness. My object, however, was, as I may have said already,
to put before intending visitors to Florida--and tarpon fishing must
gain a wider public before long--some of the chief fish that they are
likely to meet with in those waters.
Two curious facts that I find in my diaries seem worth setting down in
conclusion. One is that dogs cannot live long in that climate. They
succumb within four years to a disease that has hitherto been a complete
mystery. A local doctor has, however, isolated the microbe responsible
for the mischief.
My other hint is for the smoker. I find that a local cigar epicure
always made a practice of storing his weeds in the refrigerator, in
order to keep them in condition, for it is more difficult to keep cigars
green than in a perfectly matured state.
THE END.
INDEX
_Ælurichthys marinus_, 133
_Albula vulpes_, v. _Elops saurus_, 141
Alligator Hunting, 36
Angel Fish, 178
_Angelichthys isabelita_, 178
_Antennarius marmoratus_, 141
Aransas Pass, 29
_Archosargus probatocephalus_, 134
_Batistes carolinensis_, 178
Bass, Channel, 159
Black Grouper, 159
Boca Grande, 25
Bony Fish, 141
“Bonito,” 166
Bream, Sea, 130
Cabbage Palm, 35
Captiva Pass, 29
_Caranx hippos_, 147
_Carcharodon carcharias_, 201
Catfish, Common, 129
Catfish, Gaff Topsail, 133
“Cavalla,” 60
Cavally, 147
_Centrolabrus_, 165
Channel Bass, 159
Cigars, Preserving, 206
Cobia, 166
Coral Fouling Lines, 59
Cost of Tarpon Fishing, 29
Crab-eater, 166
Crabs, Fiddler, 134
Crabs, Horseshoe, 130
_Cynoscion nebulosus_, 154
Devil-fish, 89
Dogs, Mortality of, 206
Eel, Spotted, 165
_Elops saurus_, 141
_Epinephelus morio_, 153
Fiddler Crabs, 134
Florida Keys, 165
“Forest and Stream” (quoted), 126
Gaff, Use of the, 85
_Galeichthys felis_, 129
Garfish, the, 148
_Garrupa nigrita_, 159
Giant Ray, 91
Gopher Tortoise, Method of catching, 121
Green Turtle, 118
Ground Spearing, 154
Groupers, 159
Guide, Duties of a, 44
Hammerhead Shark, 195
Harpooning Rays, 92, 99
Harpooning Sharks, 93
Harpooning Turtles, 112
Horseshoe Crabs, 130
Hotel near Boca Grande, 29
Hughes’ Floating Hotel, 29
Islands, Scenery of the, 35
Jewfish, 79
Kingfish, 60
Ladies as Tarpon Fishers, 73
_Lamua cornubica_, v. _Carcharodon carcharias_, 201
Leather Jacket, 177
Leathery Turtle, 112
Leopard Shark, 201
Lines, American, 30
Loggerhead Turtle, 111
Look Down, 172
Man-eating Shark, 195
Mangroves, 134
Mangrove Snapper, 171
“Manta,” 92
_Menticirrhus littoralis_, 171
_Monacanthus hispidus_, 177
_Mugil brasiliensis_, 183
---- _cephalus_, 189
Mullet Baits for Tarpon, 190
Mullet, Silver, 183
Mullet, Striped, 189
_Mystriophys intertinctus_, 165
_Neomaenis griseus_, 171
Playing a Tarpon, 65
Playing a Shark, 196
_Pristis pectinatus_, 190
_Promicrops guttatus_, 153
Punta Gorda, 30
_Rachycentron canadus_, 166
Rays, 89
Red Grouper, 153
Reels, 30
Rock Cook, 165
Rods, 30
Salmon and Tarpon Fishing compared, 22
Sawfish, 190
Scales of Jewfish, 80
Scales of Tarpon, 22
_Sciænops ocellatus_, 159
_Scirus myops_, 154
“Sea Serpent,” 165
“Sea Trout,” 154
_Selene vomer_, 172
Shallow Water, Tarpon in, 53
Sharks, 190
Sheepshead, the, 134
Silver Moon Fish, 172
Silver Mullet, 183
Skill required in Tarpon Fishing, 48
Skipjack, 60
_Sphyrna zygaena_, 195
Spotted Eel, 165
Spotted Squeateague, 154
Still Fishing, 49
Striped Mullet, 189
Sucking Fish or Suckers, 79
Surf Whiting, 171
Tackle, 30
Tail of Whip Ray, 94
Tarpon, 21
Toad Fish, 141
Tortoise, 121
Trigger Fish, 178
Turtle, Cutting up, 118
Turtle, Harpooning, 112
_Tylosaurus marinus_, v. _Belone spec._, 148
Vegetation, 35
Vom Hofe, 30
Waddell, Mr. J. A. L. (quoted), 126
Ways of Losing a Tarpon, 126
Weight of Tarpon, 22
Whip Ray, Foul-hooked, 85
Whip Ray, Habits of, 89
Whip Ray, Harpooning, 92
End of Project Gutenberg's The Giant Fish of Florida, by J. Turner-Turner