Part 2

I have seen forty or more boats drifting fairly close together at Boca Grande on a moonlit night and consternation caused among them by the sudden jumping of two or three large hooked fish.

It is a popular and lazy form of sport where fish are plentiful, and as the tarpon is an elusive fish and difficult to find, Boca Grande is much frequented for the fish are known to be there in numbers.

To me the great charm of tarpon fishing is to hunt for the fish and find them, which you can do in rivers as they often swim along the surface, or if lying on the bottom come up from time to time for air.

Fish hooked in the mouth can readily be set free. Your guide is provided with a large barbless release-hook which he inserts in the fish’s jaw and then removes the fishhook with his gloved hand.

The season for tarpon fishing in Florida is from the month of May to October.

At Aransas Pass, Texas, they fish in the Gulf outside the jetties with live or dead silver mullet. The drawbacks are the rough water and the numerous sharks. June and October are the best months.

When I was at Tampico, Mexico, the method of fishing was trolling a dead silver mullet behind a row boat. We fished at the jetties seven miles below the town or ten miles up the Panuco River above Tampico. There is also a Laguna that contains small tarpon. Owing to the trade wind, afternoon fishing is difficult. The best months are February and March.

In the Panama Zone the fishing is done from the shore below the spillway of the Gatun Dam. The method of fishing is with the fly and the season is from May to November. If the Canal had no locks the tarpon would now be in the Pacific as well as in the Atlantic Ocean.

ADVICE

When going seafishing I always choose from the new to the full moon, for fish feed at night when there is a moon, and are therefore less hungry than after dark nights.

This does not apply to Boca Grande where the moon is necessary for night fishing.

The days of the changes of the moon, especially the first day of the new moon, are the best days during the month for tarpon fishing. The probable reason for this is that the tides are high and strong at such times, which means more food or more inclination to feed, for the new moon increases the activity of all fish.

When on a fishing trip I never dry my lines. Salt water preserves linen lines and a wet line is stronger than a dry one. The lines must be thoroughly dried indoors at the end of a fishing trip. Never dry lines in the sun or wind for they are fatal. Lines used in fresh water must be dried daily.

After a day’s fishing unreel the line and reel it on again with care. This is done to take the strain off the reel-drum and to prevent the reel from spreading.

Split bamboo rods are the only rods that are strong and durable enough for heavy fishing. For ease and comfort fish with a rod that is not over six inches longer than you are tall. Long rods are back breakers.

When I first visited Catalina Island in 1900 I broke at the butt, a defective 6 ft. 9 in. rod, which, when repaired, was 6 ft. 5 in. long. With this rod I killed 13 tuna that weighed 1,411 pounds in fourteen days and discovered the advantage of a short rod. I now fish with split-bamboo rods in one piece, tip and butt all in one, 6 ft. 5 in. long.

My success at Catalina in 1900 was the cause of the Tuna Club Rules. The Secretary of the Club informed me as I was leaving the island that they had desired that an experienced tarpon fisherman should try the tuna but that they were disappointed with my “great success!”

The Tuna Club Rules followed. They were quite right to limit the size and strength of lines but an angler should be allowed to choose his own length of rod. It takes better hands to fish with a short stiff rod than with a long pliable one and in heavy fishing comfort and ease is the desideratum.

If the insects are bad use:

3 C’s

Oils of Camphor, Cedar and Citronella in equal parts. For the bites of insects Pine Oil is the best palliative. If subject to sunburn “Face Paint” is an absolutely sure preventative. It makes one look like a Red Indian but it is pleasant to use and no sun has the slightest effect on skin covered with this mixture.

Prescription for Face Paint to Prevent Sunburn

3 oz. Yellow Ochre

2 oz. Burnt Sienna

4 oz. Mucilage of Quince or Flax Seed, or bandoline, Rosewater, to make one pint. Shake well before using.

Put in a large-mouthed bottle and apply with absorbent cotton and when nearly dry, spread evenly over the face with the fingers.

WEIGHT AND MEASUREMENT

Mr. William H. Wood, the pioneer of tarpon fishing, was the originator of the formula for estimating the weight of tarpon when first taken from the water:

(Girth^2 × length)/800 = weight

I was puzzled for a long time trying to discover the reason for the divisor being 800. A friendly fellow fisherman, Mr. B. R. Kittredge, eventually solved the question as follows:

“Consider in the first place that the shape of the fish is represented by two wedges placed base to base. The area of the base of a wedge multiplied by half its length gives its cubic volume. So the volume of the two wedges would be the area of the base multiplied by the length of one wedge. The volume of a fish in cubic inches would be the area of his middle section multiplied by half his length.

If you square the circumference of any given square you obtain a square that is 16 times the area of the given square. For example 10 × 10 has an area of 100. It has a circumference of 40 which squared gives 1,600. So that the square of the girth of a fish divided by 16 would give the area of that section of the fish. Multiply the area of this section by half his length and you will have the cubic volume of the fish.

Formula: (Girth^2)/16 × length/2 = cubic volume

The specific gravity of fish is approximately 1.15 so that about 25 cubic inches of fish weigh 29 of water or one pound.

So that if you divide the number of cubic inches in a fish by 25 you will have his weight in pounds:

Formula: (Girth^2)/16 × length/2 × 1/25 = weight in lbs.

which simplified is Girth^2 × length over 800.

My friend says a more simple formula is:

(1/4)Girth^2 × 2 times length = weight.

Tarpon must be measured when first taken from the water in order to obtain their true weight for they shrink when exposed to the air. A heavy fish that is hung up over night will stretch inches in length by the following morning. The length should be measured from the tip of the closed mouth over the swell of the fish to a line drawn between the flukes of the tail.

RECORDS

As far as my personal knowledge is concerned the first tarpon was landed with rod and reel by Mr. W. H. Wood on March 25th, 1885, bottom fishing in Surveyors’ Creek, Florida. Mr. Wood’s great ambition was to land a tarpon while fishing from the shore or beach.

I know of over a dozen fish that have been taken that weighed 200 pounds or more.

The first was landed by Mrs. Stagg and weighed, I believe, 205 pounds.

Edward Vom Hofe’s fish followed on April 30, 1898, 210 pounds at Captiva Pass, Florida.

N. M. George took one of 213 pounds at Bahia Honda, Florida, on April 8th, 1901.

Dr. Howe wrote me from Mexico that he had captured a 223-pound tarpon at Tampico.

The largest tarpon I ever saw was caught off Tea Table Key, Florida, on May 15th, 1904. I was told that it weighed 224 pounds. Charlie Thompson, a professional fisherman, was the lucky angler.

W. A. McLaren holds the record for a fish taken in the Panuco River, Mexico, on March 27th, 1911. Length 7 ft. 8 ins.; girth 47 ins. Weight 232 pounds.

Mrs. W. Ashby Jones caught a tarpon in the Caloosahatchee River, Florida, in 1916, that weighed 210 pounds.

Mr. B. W. Crowninshield has a record of 25 tarpon taken between sunrise and sunset at Boca Grande and I believe Mr. L. G. Murphy has a like record at Aransas Pass.

The greatest fishing I ever heard of was done by Mr. and Mrs. Magill on a cruise along the west coast of Florida in 1915. They captured 176 tarpon that weighed 16,377 pounds. The heaviest fish weighed 196½ pounds, eleven weighed over 180 and forty over 150 pounds each.

There were 785 tarpon weighed at Useppa Island in 1917 and but 23 of them weighed over 150 pounds.

At Aransas Pass, Texas, the following fish were liberated after being measured:

1906 1,573 1907 1,333 1908 700 Beginning of light tackle 1909 720 1910 800 49% on light tackle 1911 718 66% “ “ “ 1912 530 64% “ “ “ 1913 960 78% “ “ “

The falling off between 1907 and 1908 was partly owing to the introduction of light tackle but also to the extension of the jetties which made the channel dangerous and rough.

In the 90’s the tarpon that were weighed would average about 100 pounds but of late years the average has fallen to about 80 pounds. This would lead one to believe that the number of heavy fish is decreasing.

I believe that the tarpon of over 150 pounds in weight are of great age and that they grow very slowly. I judge this from the fact that they are dainty feeders, for there is very little undigested food found in them when examined.

Several thousand fish have been destroyed yearly for over twenty-five years and although it is now the custom to liberate most of the hooked fish many of these tired tarpon become the victims of piratical sharks and those that are taken in nets are usually destroyed by the fishermen owing to the damage they do to the nets.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Superscripted text is represented as “text^superscripted”.

Author’s spelling of “ramoras” retained.

Ditto marks normalized in the table starting on page 34.

Typo on page 15 corrected: “navigagable” to “navigable”.

The missing closing quotation mark on page 31 has been left as-is.