Part 11

The lover of sheepsheading will find his quarry about the piling of old wharves or about the oyster reefs, while his bait--fiddler crabs--abound in myriads on the beaches. I once saw the catch of a man who took three hundred on a single tide from Summerlin's cattle wharf at Puntarassa. He should have been indicted, tried and convicted by a jury of honest anglers and sentenced to a term of imprisonment by a judge of fair sport. The sheepshead, with its human-like incisors, is very adroit at nibbling the bait from the hook, and must be circumvented by a quick, sharp turn of the wrist upon the least provocation or intimation of its intentions; this will drive the hook into its well-paved jaw six times in ten. When hooked, the sheepshead makes strenuous efforts to reach the bottom, which is very trying to a light rod. The fish should be kept near the surface until the spring of the rod compels it to give up the contest. A school of sheepshead, in their striped suits, reminds one of a gang of prison convicts, begging their pardon for the comparison; of course all comparisons are odious. The same rod and tackle hereafter recommended for cavalli, etc., answers for sheepshead.

The cavalli, or jack, with its second cousins, the runner, the horse-eye jack, the leather jack, amber jack and the pompanos, are closely allied to the mackerels, and all are game-fishes. The cavalli can be taken with the fly, bait, or trolling-spoon, and when hooked puts up a vigorous fight. It is a handsome silvery fish, bound in blue and yellow, and can be found about the inlets and tideways. In rare instances it reaches twenty pounds in weight, but is usually taken from two to ten pounds. Ordinary black bass tackle is suitable for the cavalli, with a sinker adapted to the strength of the tide. For baits, any small fish, as anchovy and pilchard, will answer, while shrimp and cut bait can also be used. Gaudy and attractive flies are the best for fly-fishing, which can be practiced from piers, a boat, or from the points of inlets. The most popular way of fishing is by trolling in the channels, when a spoon with but a single hook should be used.

The sea-trout is a surface-feeding fish, and a game one. It is not a trout, of course, but is akin to the Northern weakfish, and is called a trout, by courtesy, because of its black spots. It takes the fly because it cannot help it, and will give the angler ample exercise with a light rod before it is landed. Being more high-minded than the sheepshead, it does its fighting on the surface. The sea-trout is not a bushwhacker nor yet a guerilla. It sometimes runs up the streams to fresh water.

The Spanish mackerel is not a whit behind the sea-trout in gameness, or in its aptitude or fancy for the feathers and tinsel of an artificial fly. It is the trimmest built fish that swims, and always reminds me of a beautiful racing yacht. It feeds and fights on the surface and in the open, displaying its silver and blue tunic with gold buttons to good advantage. They move in battalions along the outer shores during winter, but in March and April enter the inlets in companies, and then afford fine sport to the angler.

When the Spanish mackerel is running into the bays and inlets, it is often accompanied by the sea-trout (spotted weakfish). Both fishes are surface feeders and take bait or the artificial fly eagerly, as stated. They run in schools at this season, and are readily seen as they plow along the surface, creating quite a ripple.

The fishing at this time is practical from wharves or the points of inlets and passes.

The long piers at Port Tampa and St. Petersburg on the west coast are favorite places. The fishing is done on the flood tide, mostly, but often at the last of the ebb. No special directions are needed when the fish are running in schools, except to keep the bait or fly in constant motion on the surface--the fish will do the rest.

Both are game-fishes of high degree, and the angler will have all he can attend to after hooking one on light tackle. As food fishes they are excellent. I prefer to fish from the sand-spits at the mouths of inlets, or if near a pier to fish from a boat moored alongside, as the fish are not so likely to see one, and they are more easily landed.

Ordinary black bass tackle is quite suitable for either fish, with fly or bait. Braided linen lines are preferable, however, to silk ones, as the latter soon rot in salt water. A gut leader about four feet long and snelled hooks, Nos. 1 to 3, are all right for bait-fishing. The best bait is a small sardine, anchovy or mullet, though the casting spoon, with a single hook, or a pearl squid of small size may be used if kept in constant motion on the surface.

For fly-fishing a single fly is sufficient, of any bright pattern, with some gilt or silver tinsel on the body, as the silver doctor, tied on No. 3 hooks. A long-handled landing-net is indispensable.

The kingfish--not the fish known by that name in Northern waters, but a second cousin to the Spanish mackerel--is found along the reefs from Cape Florida to Boca Chica. It is one of the principal food fishes of Key West, and is taken by the fishermen trolling with a strip of bacon rind, which is something in the nature of an indignity, for it is a grand game-fish on the rod, and will take fly or bait on long casts. It grows much larger than the Spanish mackerel, often to twenty pounds or more, and is of a more somber hue. Its cousin, the cero, is very similar in size and appearance, but has dark spots along its graceful sides. All of this genus are among the best for the table, as all real game-fishes are.

The best member of the drum family is the redfish, or channel bass. It is one of the common game-fishes of the brackish water bays on either coast. It is a handsome fish with a coat of old red gold and a vest of silver and pearl. It is characterized by a large black spot near the tail; sometimes there will be two spots, and occasionally these are split up into a half dozen. While the redfish is very susceptible to bait it often rises to the fly, if a large and gaudy one. In either event it offers a stubborn resistance when hooked, and when of large size--from twenty to forty pounds--a good strong rod is a sine qua non, though I once killed one on a Henshall rod of eight ounces, which was fully thirty-five pounds in weight. Most of the fish-scale jewelry and artificial flowers are made from the scales of redfish.

Fig. 2. Cero. (Scomberomorus regalis.)]

All of the groupers, the red and black, the scamp and gag, are game-fishes worthy of the steel of the angler, and grow to goodly size, twenty to forty pounds. They inhabit comparatively deep water about the inlets, or along the outer shores and keys, especially in rocky situations. Being bottom feeders they must be taken with natural bait, though the trolling-spoon has its attractions. Those named are rather sober in their garb, which is more or less marbled or spotted with black, but some of the groupers about Key West are remarkably handsome fishes, and are much given to very gay and bizarre attire; their coats, like Joseph's, being of many colors. They also bear more aristocratic names, as witness: John Paw, Nassau, Hamlet, Cabrilla, etc. But the dude of the family is the niggerfish, which is a rag-time dandy, always in full dress for a cake walk.

The snappers are worthy members of the finny race. The red snapper is the most widely known, commercially, being shipped from Pensacola and Tampa to all Northern cities. It is a large, handsome fish, dressed, like Mephistopheles, from snout to tail in scarlet. As it is taken only in deep water, on the snapper banks, by hand lines, it is of no importance to the angler. But the gray, or mangrove snapper, is a wary, active fish and good game. It lurks under the mangroves and must be fished for cautiously, when it will rise eagerly to the fly, and on light tackle is no mean adversary. Its usual weight is from one to three pounds.

The lane snapper, dog snapper, yellowtail and schoolmaster, are fine pan fishes, clothed in royal raiment, and frequent the channels amid the coral reefs near Key West, where they are readily taken with sea crawfish bait. The muttonfish is larger and an esteemed table fish, and with the other snappers is like the lilies, of which we are told, "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." It is a genuine pleasure to the observant angler to capture one of these fish, if only to gaze upon its beauties, and watch the play of prismatic colors as reflected in its gorgeous attire. Fishing with light tackle for these lovely denizens of the coral banks, with one's boat rising and falling on the rhythmic swell of the pure emerald green sea, is both a joy and a delight.

The highflyers, or finny acrobats, are the tarpon, kingfish, ladyfish and ten-pounder. The first-named is so well known that further mention here is unnecessary, and moreover I have accorded it a special article, for it trots alone in its class; but while the ladyfish and ten-pounder are only a couple of feet in length, they are still worthy to be named in connection with his silver majesty. They are built for aërial as well as for submarine navigation, and dart so quickly from one element to the other that it is somewhat bewildering to watch one at the end of a line. Twenty-five years ago I compared the ladyfish to a "silver shuttle," for such it appeared in its efforts to escape when hooked.

The angler visiting the region of Biscayne Bay will find considerable confusion existing, not only among Northern tourists, but among the residents, concerning the proper identification of the ladyfish and ten-pounder. They are two silvery, spindle-shaped fishes that resemble each other very closely in size, general outline and appearance, and are known as the ladyfish or bonefish, and the ten-pounder or bony-fish; the latter is also sometimes called Jack Marrigle in Bermuda, and both fishes are not infrequently alluded to as "skip-jack." They are game-fishes of a high order and of equal degree.

The confusion alluded to has been aired in our angling papers for several years, sometimes with photo-illustrations of the fishes concerned, which, however, only served to make confusion worse confounded. For instance, I remember one communication with an illustration of the ladyfish, but which was stated in the text to be the bonefish and not the ladyfish.

This confusion of names arose originally from the fact that the names bone-fish and bony-fish were applied indiscriminately by native fishermen to both ladyfish and ten-pounder; indeed, the names ladyfish, ten-pounder, and their synonyms bonefish and bony-fish date back to our earliest history. In Natal it is called "springer."

Their scientific names were both bestowed by Linnæus more than two hundred years ago. Catesby, in 1737, called the ladyfish of the Bahamas "bonefish," while Captain William Dampier, one of the early explorers, called the bony-fish of the Bahamas "ten-pounder." While the two fishes are both allied to the herring tribe, they belong to different families, though the young of both species undergo a metamorphosis, or pass through a larval stage, in which they appear as ribbon-shaped, transparent bodies, totally unlike their parents.

As just stated, they belong to entirely different families. The ladyfish (Albula vulpes), or bonefish, as it may be called, is the only fish in its family (Albulidæ), while the ten-pounder (Elops saurus), or bony-fish, belongs to the tarpon family (Elopidæ), and like the tarpon has a bony plate between the branches of the lower jaw (hence bony-fish), which bone does not exist in the ladyfish. The proper identification of the two fishes is really easier than to distinguish between the two species of black bass, or to differentiate a pike from a pickerel.

The most pronounced difference is in the conformation of the mouth. The ladyfish has an overhanging, pig-like snout, the mouth being somewhat underneath, while the ten-pounder has a terminal mouth, that is, with the upper and lower lips meeting in front, the same as in most fishes. The scales of the ladyfish are nearly twice as large as those of the ten-pounder, otherwise, as to the general contour, silvery appearance, and shape and disposition of fins the two species are much alike to the ordinary observer. So, if they are called ladyfish and ten-pounder, their proper names, and not bonefish or bony-fish, the confusion at once disappears.

Black bass tackle, the rod not less than eight ounces, is sufficient for either ladyfish or ten-pounder. Sproat hooks, Nos. 1 to 3, on long gut snells if no leader is used, are large enough, for both fishes have rather small mouths. Usually no sinker, beyond a small box-swivel, is required when fishing on the flood tide at inlets, unless the tidal current is very strong, when it may become necessary to use one of suitable weight. The best fishing is at the mouths of inlets during the flood tide, when the fish are feeding on beach fleas, pompano shells, shrimps and other crustaceans which roll in on every wave, and are the best baits to use. A small fish, an inch or two long, also makes a good bait. The smallest casting-spoon, with a single hook, or a small shell squid, may often be employed with advantage, as well as a small, bright artificial fly.

The fishing may be practiced from a boat anchored just within the inlet, or from the sand-spits at its mouth. At other stages of the tide, especially at high water slack, good fishing may be had in the shallow water of grassy flats and sandy shoals, by making long casts, for in such situations these fishes are quite shy.

The snook is a good game-fish, strong and active, rises to the fly in shallow water, and will take any kind of fish or crab bait, or the trolling-spoon. It is shaped somewhat like the pike-perch, with the flattened head and jaws of the pike minus its sharp teeth. It is attired in a silvery mantle with a broad, black stripe running along the side from head to tail. It is a fair food-fish if skinned instead of scaled. It is known as snook on the east coast, and as rovallia on the west coast, a corruption of its Cuban name, robalo. It grows to two or three feet and twenty to thirty pounds. Heavy black bass, or light striped bass, tackle is necessary to withstand its fierce rushes when hooked.

And last, but not least, comes the jewfish, the Gargantua of the water, though clothed in a vesture of modest blackish gray. It is somewhat like a colossal black bass in contour and appearance, and in fact a closely allied species, the jewfish of the Pacific, is called black bass on the coast of southern California. The David who slays this Goliath of the deep should be proud of his achievement, if it is killed on the rod. From twenty to one hundred pounds is about the usual limit of rod-fishing for the jewfish, though a few have been killed on the rod upward of two hundred or three hundred pounds at Catalina Island on the California coast.

At any deep inlet of the west coast of Florida, or about Key West, they may be found, but never in great numbers. Unlike the tarpon, the jewfish is an excellent fish for the table, and is greatly esteemed at Key West, where it is cut in steaks and fried in batter, when it is very toothsome. I helped capture one on a shark line at Jupiter Light on the east coast in 1878 that weighed three hundred and forty pounds on the light-house steelyard, and United States Senator Quay was a witness to the weighing. I was also particeps criminis in taking on a shark line another that weighed three hundred pounds, at Little Gasparilla inlet, on the Gulf coast, in the same year. And farther up the coast, at Gordon's Pass, near Naples, I killed a number on the rod that weighed from twenty to sixty pounds. A decade ago the south shore of this inlet, under the palmetto trees which grew on the steep bank, was a noted place for jewfish, and much frequented by Col. Haldeman and other Kentucky gentlemen who had winter residences at Naples.