Favorite fish and fishing . such jumbos as barracuda, tarpon,jewfish, sharks and Some of these were taken with rod and Grains y^^^^ ^^^ Other means were resorted to for the largest ones. Pent was an expert Inthe use of the grains, a two-prongedspear much employed in Florida. It hasa long and strong line attached to the spear,with a handle for throwing which becomesdetached when a fish Is struck. StandingIn the bow of the dory, which I would pad-dle cautiously up to the fringe of bushesalong the shore. Pent would hurl the grainstwenty, thirty or even forty feet, and sel-dom fail
Favorite fish and fishing . such jumbos as barracuda, tarpon,jewfish, sharks and Some of these were taken with rod and Grains y^^^^ ^^^ Other means were resorted to for the largest ones. Pent was an expert Inthe use of the grains, a two-prongedspear much employed in Florida. It hasa long and strong line attached to the spear,with a handle for throwing which becomesdetached when a fish Is struck. StandingIn the bow of the dory, which I would pad-dle cautiously up to the fringe of bushesalong the shore. Pent would hurl the grainstwenty, thirty or even forty feet, and sel-dom failed to plant the barbs firmly In theback of a huge fish as It lay sunning Itselfunder the mangroves—then there wassomething doing for ten or fifteen Big Fish The largest barracuda we captured meas-ured six and one-half feet, the largest tar-pon seven and one-quarter, an Immense saw-fish nineteen, and a man-eating shark fifteenfeet. But the liveliest tussle we had waswith a devil-fish of moderate dimensions,164. Florida Fish and Fishing eight feet across the pectoral fins—I haveseen them of twenty. Following the leadof Victor Hugo, the octopus is often called devil-fish, but the name rightly belongsto this fish, the largest of the rays {Mantahirostris). The floundering and struggling of one Strenuousof these aquatic giants, in shallow water, ^^ ^^^was something to be remembered, whilethe erratic pitching and lunging of the doryas it followed the lead of the finny motorwas, to say the least, exciting. These largefishes were towed ashore, killed outrightand dissected, in order to ascertain some-thing in relation to their diet and time ofspawning. One day we saw a porpoise in very shal- Porpoise , -^ , . , , 1 Calves low water playmg with her two calves,which were about three feet long. Thewater scarcely covered them. Being some-what curious as to the result, I took therifle and sent a bullet ricocheting across thewater just behind her. In great alarm shegathered a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublishe, booksubjectfishing
