Illustrated From Photographs Taken by Julian A. Dimock
Outing Magazine, 1907, Volume 11
In virtue of royal qualities, majestic mien, coruscating courage and the knightly abandon of his battling, the tarpon is not merely the “Silver King,” but the King. He accepts the sportsman’s challenge by leaping into the arena in full, flashing armor, and so joyously meeting his challenger in his own element as to place tarpon fishing forever in a class by itself.
The game is great. It thrills the most stolid of human participants to the tips of his toes, and to compare with it any kindred sport is a tiresome travesty. The tarpon is the most beautiful of big fish, the most spectacular of finny fighters, a swift swimmer of dauntless courage, the one all around game fish at every age and without a streak of yellow in his makeup.
I have wasted photograph plates and time on bass, trout, lady-fish, ravallia and other fish that pretend to jump, and, compared with exposures on the King of Fish, the result has been about as interesting as so many flyspecks on the film. The average leap of the hooked salmon could be beaten by a sick tarpon in his sleep.
The photographs herewith fairly present this royal fish as he appears when playing the game with his human adversary. They were taken by the camera-man during two summer months spent by him and the scribe on the Gulf coast of Florida, two months that gave daily evidence that of sports that thrill there are few on earth like fishing for tarpon.
Wefollowed and fished for them with fly-rods, with heavy tarpon rods and with hand lines. We were fast to three hundred and thirty-four, of which sixty-three were on an eight-ounce fly-rod. Excepting a twopound specimen, taken for the table, we killed none, although a few were eaten by sharks while being played.
In fishing for pleasure, the average sportsman spends from thirty to ninety minutes over each fish, keeping within twenty to one hundred yards of the tarpon as he plays him. As we were fishing for the camera, a long range contest was useless, and we fought the fish fiercely from the time they struck, regardless of the risk of their breaking loose.
We smashed five heavy tarpon rods, broke several lines that would each sustain over sixty pounds and broke or straightened at least a dozen tarpon hooks. We held the canoe from which we fished as near the tarpon as possible, and as soon as he seemed tired pulled it beside him and took the hook from his mouth. Frequently we found this exciting.
From Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable we exploited the tarpon fishing ground with thoroughness. The avoirdupois of the fish caught varied from one and onehalf pounds each to more than one hundred times that weight, while their length ranged from eighteen inches to over six and one-half feet. We captured them in the Gulf of Mexico, while white-capped waves spilled water over us, and we were towed by them through narrow overgrown creeks, where sometimes our quarry escaped by leaping into the bushes above our heads. We caught as many as twenty- five in a single day, and then, as on many other days, stopped fishing because the plates of the camera-man had given out.
The tarpon can be played gently and easily, with a light strain from a smooth running reel, with an effort that wouldn’t tire a robust child, for one, two, or three hours, until he rolls over on his back, exhausted and ready for the hook to be taken from his mouth. Or he can be fought furiously from the start, the boat dragged near him and little line yielded, while the fish leaps wildly and frequently, around, beside, over and even into the boat of the fisherman. This method calls for strength of muscle, tackle and nerves, but there is little in the line of sport that returns bigger dividends in excitement. I was never harmed in the game, but tarpon landed on my head, caromed on my shoulder, swamped my canoe and one even dropped his big, slippery form squarely in my arms. The camera-man smiled at my coating of slime, but when a tarpon jumped in, and Joe jumped out of the motor boat, he forgot to laugh until later.
Often a leaping tarpon struck his boat, sometimes landing on the gunwale and nearly falling inside, and many times he had to wheel quickly around to save his camera from the deluge of water thrown by a leaping, frantic fish.
To catch tarpon one must go to the right place at the right time. Small specimens, of from two to fifteen pounds, are usually found in fresh water, in creeks and pools near the head of rivers. Larger fish, of from twenty to sixty pounds, seem to prefer the brackish water of streams nearer the Gulf, while the really big fish, weighing from eighty to two hundred pounds, are more frequently caught in the big passes or near the mouths of large rivers like the Caloosahatchee.
The small fish near the heads of the rivers can be found at any season, but in general it is hardly worth while to fish for tarpon before April, and it is much better to wait until July and thus escape heat and mosquitoes. In May, South Florida weather becomes warm in the shade and hot in the sun, while mosquitoes on the shore are sometimes almost unendurable to folks who have never fished in a salmon stream. The rains of June cool the air and seem to drive away the mosquitoes, for the temperature of July and August is not unpleasant, breezes are almost constant and mosquitoes are so few that we often slept on deck beside the shore without a mosquito bar. Then, too, such luscious fruits as sugar apples, pine apples, mangoes and guavas are in their prime, while there is always food for sentiment in gorgeous masses of clouds, winddriven and sun-painted, and such feathered flocks and other wild creatures as the women and tourists of Vanity Fair have permitted to live.
We began our work in Captiva Pass, beside which we anchored the Irene. A little motor boat with a reversing propeller, and Joe, our young skipper, to run it, held the camera-man and his tools. I sat with Frank, my boatman, in a canoe which he paddled while I trolled for tarpon. The motor boat backed, filled and hovered on the sunward side of us, while the cameraman kept his seventeen pound weapon trained upon us and his hand on the focussing screw. Sometimes both boatman and camera-man got tired. Then the motor boat towed the canoe, from which both Frank and I fished, and the camera rested on a seat.
When one of us had a strike the other took in his line and seized a paddle, the painter of the canoe was cast off, the motor boat maneuvered for position, the paddler labored to keep the canoe on a plane with and near the fish, while the fisherman coddled or worried the tarpon, to keep him quiet or make him perform, as camera conditions called for.
There are deep holes in Captiva Pass, above which the water swirls when the tide is swift. From these holes tarpon rise continually, but it is quite useless to fish for them. They will even knock a bait aside as they come to the surface to blow. It is better to troll just inside the Pass, near the channels which lead to it, or wherever the tarpon can be seen rising. The fish bite best on a falling tide. We had no fresh bait on our first day and used spoons and trolling lines. Our only returns were in cavalli, Spanish mackerel, and sharks. I was hopeful for a moment, when after a strong pull on my line a fish shot into the air. But it was with the twisting, low leap of the mackerel shark, the only one of his species that jumps.
It is unwise to pull a shark against the side of alight canoe, so we landed and dragged the brute up on the beach and pounded his head with a club, to punish him for being a shark. That night Joe went out with his cast net and we had plenty of fresh mullet for bait in the morning, when the fish proved greedy and we collected seven.
The outgoing tide was so strong that the first tarpon struck carried us out into the Gulf a mile and squandered two hours of time. Sometimes he swam smoothly, with occasional graceful leaps, then in furious mood threw his supple body, convulsed with passion, above the surface of the water. We fought the others so hard that we broke two lines and straightened three hooks.
As the tide and a tarpon were carrying us swiftly along the beach out of the pass, I sheered the canoe to the shore and Frank sprang out, carrying his trolling line. A sudden dash of the fish tore the line from his hand, and as its tangled mass struck the water he sprang after it.
For a moment I feared he was going out to sea, but he tamely surrendered the line and scrambled back to shore. We then anchored the canoe and the first tarpon struck brought up the anchor line as he jumped beside us. Day by day the tarpon in the Pass became fewer and more finical. Often a wave rolling behind my trailing slice of mullet showed that a tarpon was following it. I wiggled the bait seductively, settled it back confidingly and withdrew it coyly. Sometimes I succeeded, more often I failed.
Finally, out of twenty rises in one day I only struck three fish. Something was needed to make the lure more tempting. We tried various small fish with indifferent success. At last I chanced to put a needle-fish on the hook, and it was seized as it touched the water, then another and another were taken. Thereafter, when the tide was high, Frank patrolled the beachwith a fowling piece and shot needlefish as they wandered along the water’s edge. Few tarpon could resist the new bait. If ever they did resist its supple attractiveness, it was quite useless to fish any more on that tide with any lure whatever. When the bubbles of a tarpon rose to the surface, or he came up to blow, we paddled within fifty feet, threw the bait at the disturbed water and often captured the fish.
Captiva is a little pass and the fish needed a rest, so we moved six miles up the coast to Boca Grande, the big pass, a mile wide with a ten fathom channel, the home of great sea-creatures, from dolphins to turtles, from sharks to devil-fish. The pass was wind-swept when we arrived and its turbulent water alive with fish of many kinds. Flocks of gulls, terns and pelicans above, and splashings of jackfish and tarpon below, marked the presence of great schools of minnows. Nothing was easier than to strike a tarpon, but then the trouble began. Tide and the tarpon were carrying us out to the near-by, foam-crested rollers , while the motor boat vainly struggled against them. We were rushing through the water away from the breakers, yet minute by minute, as in an uncanny dream, they drifted nearer. Soon the spray was flying over the canoe, while from the crest of the waves solid water spilled into the low-sided motor boat, which was quickly cut loose from the canoe, since it barely had power to carry itself out of the turmoil.
A canoe is at home among big waves and the hour we spent in that tossing water was delightful, even though the work of the camera was not advanced. When the tired tarpon had received his freedom we paddled to the beach, and, keeping near the shore, made our way back into the harbor, which we reached at dark, with nothing but pleasant memories to show for the work of a strenuous day.
Thereafter, when the wind was high and the tide strong, we either fished from an anchorage, or cast anchor from the canoe whenever a tarpon was struck. Sometimes, but seldom, the line on the reel got low, the fish having carried off five hundred feet and we had to take in the anchor and follow him. It is rarely that a fish weighing less than two hundred pounds will swim a hundred yards against a fortypound pull, and after the first few strenuous minutes it was usually possible to reel in the line until the excited tarpon was leaping beside the canoe.
Often he struck it, sometimes half capsized it, and more than once leaped over it. Funny things happened, as when a big tarpon, which I was playing with shortened line, rose beside and against the canoe, shaking his great open mouth so near my face that I put up my hand to push him away and an instant later was struck in the back by the hook which the tarpon succeeded in ejecting as he leaped high and again on the other side of the canoe; or as when Frank was taking the hook from the mouth of an exhausted tarpon which he was holding, the fish broke away, dove under the canoe and rising on the other side threw body and tail against the back and head of his antagonist in a resounding spank that nearly knocked the breath out of his tormentor’s body.
In all our rough play with the tarpon alone, there was never a thought of danger, but of a certain occasion I think seriously even to-day. A tarpon which had just jumped near the canoe was rising beside it for another leap when he was struck by a great shark and bitten in two. A blow from the tail of the monster nearly swamped the canoe and the water that fell over it was mingled with the blood of the tarpon. Although I believe that, contrary to public opinion, no shark in this country ever attacked a living human being in the water, yet I don’t know the consideration that would have sent me overboard voluntarily in the vicinity of that tragedy. It was the day of the shark, and I lost a second tarpon similarly a few hours later.
Some days afterward I had played a tarpon until, from his feeble leaps, I fancied him ripe for the removal of the hook, when he suddenly darted away with renewed vigor. I was quite unable to restrain him, and as we neared the end of the two hundred yard line the anchor was taken in and I turned the rod over to Frank. He suggested that a shark had swallowed our tarpon, a surmise which proved to be correct. I paddled the canoe to the beach where, after much toil, we succeeded in stranding the brute, and the camera-man who had photographed the earlier leaps of the tarpon now pictured him at rest in the stomach of his slayer.
When fishing in the big pass we often found it well to fasten to the line a sinker of from one to four ounces in weight, with a bit of twine that was not too strong. If fastened too firmly it would have torn loose the hook or snapped the strongest line, when the fish shook his head in real earnest. Fishing with a sinker added to our trouble with sharks but gave us plenty of grouper for chowder, as surface trolling filled our larder with king fish and Spanish mackerel, as by-products. The leap of the tarpon is usually an effort to get rid of the hook, which he often succeeds in sending, with the bait, hurtling through the air, as shown in many of the photographs. It is to be regretted that no picture was obtained of a needlefish which was thus thrown high by a tarpon and caught before it could reach the water by a man-o’-war hawk, which was wisely soaring above us.
There were days and tides when the tarpon seemed crazy and would rise to salted bait as freely as to fresh. One day we took twelve tarpon which rose to salted baits almost the instant they were cast, and we then stopped fishing because the plate-holders of the camera-man were empty. That night he complained that he was tired of the camera and proposed to try some moonlight fishing with a rod. He caught two tarpon with two baits, and thereafter, using a handkerchief as a lure, captured three more.
These were taken in Boca Grande Pass, about two hundred yards from the railroad wharf, a point which I look upon as mighty near the cen ter of the tarpon industry of the country. For several weeks we vibrated between Boca Grande and Captiva Passes, as conditions of wind and tide indicated. Then, when twenty-nine days had given us one hundred and fifty tarpon, we remembered the rest of our programme and sailed for the Caloosahatchee River. At the favorite pools a few miles above Fort Myers we chanced to draw blanks, while five days at Nigger Head, eight miles below the town, gave us thirty-five tarpon, all goodly size.
Marco lies on the Florida coast forty miles below Punta Rassa and the Caloosahatchee River. I had enjoyed for years a personal acquaintance with most of the tarpon in that country and felt humiliated that only fourteen responded to my advances during three days.
A strong wind from the north carried us down the coast, and on the day we lifted our anchor at Marco we dropped it in the Shark River bight, a few miles north of Cape Sable. There are tarpon in the many mouths of Shark River at all seasons, but two hours cruising in the motor boat disclosed so few that we sailed north four miles and entered Harney River, where I had arranged to donate two eight-ounce fly rods, with sundry extra tips and second joints to the baby tarpon that I knew lived in a nursery near its head.
The head of Harney River lies among the lilies of the ‘Glades and is the only open path from the coast to that mysterious region, but not every pilot can follow the labyrinthic ways of that beautiful river. From the tangle of oyster bars at its mouth we sailed seven miles to its junction with a branch of Shark River at Tussock Bay. Two miles of an E.N.E. course brought to light an old Indian camp on a tiny palmetto key.
From this key six miles of a crooked course averaging N.E. led through twisting, grass-grown channels, narrow straits, broad sluggish rivers and swift, winding creeks, until the bowsprit of the Irene rested above the grass of the ‘ Glades. The possessor of craft of the woods may find near here an old, well-hidden Indian camp, where he can gather lemons and limes by the bushel, to the tuneful jarring of rattles.
From the head of Harney River to Tussock Bay the pools and creeks are filled with tarpon weighing, each, from twenty ounces to twenty pounds. In five days I captured twenty-five on an eight- ounce fly rod. The lure was a tiny strip of mullet, sometimes cast, but commonly trolled, since it was necessary to strike nearly straight from the reel to fasten the hook in the hard mouth of the quarry, the weak spring of the rod being insufficient.
There is no fish more gamy than a young tarpon, and one of about five pounds weight led my canoe a mile through a crooked creek, jumping at short intervals and finally escaping by leaping over my head into a clump of bushes where the line caught and held the fish suspended until broken by his struggles.
Other small tarpon tangled the line in the bushes after a much shorter chase, and one five-foot tarpon which had strayed into a wider portion of the stream showed his contempt for our snares by making his first-and last-leap high up in the branches of a tree that overhung the river’s bank. Photographing in these narrow creeks got on the nerves of the cameraman. There was seldom a chance to get the motor boat in position, and the few negatives exposed in the twilight of the overhung streams developed into something like flashlights in Africa.
Three miles north of the mouth of Harney River, Broad and Rodgers Rivers enter the Gulf by a common outlet. In the latter stream not a tarpon was to be seen, while Broad River was full of them. They were all big fellows, and the fly rod was laid on the shelf. The anchor was dropped near a bunch of the fish, and as Frank and I were launching the canoe, Joe picked up my rod and was quickly fast to a tarpon which promptly broke both rod and reel.
I rigged up a rod from a stick of bamboo, while Frank used one of heavy, orthodox make and both of us fished from the canoe. My first strike was before the bait was three feet from the canoe, and for some hours one of us was always fighting a tarpon, while the other paddled and the camera-man circled about in the motor boat, either stuffing slides in his camera or holding the seventeen-pound weapon aimed at us. We were in full swing, and had already captured ten of the creatures, when a tarpon which I was playing with a short line dashed under the canoe, and before I could dip the rod enough to clear the craft it was smashed.
The fish was so tired that we managed to secure him and lift the hook from his mouth. This is accomplished by placing the thumb in the corner of the tarpon’s mouth, clamping the fingers around a bone that projects from the side of the jaw, and holding firmly while the free hand removes the hook. The thumb in the tarpon’s mouth is quite safe, as he always throws open his jaws when he struggles. The next fish employed the same ruse of dodging beneath the canoe, and as Frank tried to hold him by main strength our last rod was smashed. Not to let such fishing get away, we sailed that night to Everglade and improvised rods, one of which, made from a hickory hoe handle, seemed un- breakable-but wasn’t. We returned to Broad River at once, only to find it barren of tarpon.
Six miles up the coast we picked our way through the labyrinth of oyster-bars at the mouth of Lossmans River, and explored that stream for a day, quite in vain.
Next above Lossmans and ten miles north of it lies Hueston River, in Chatham Bend, where in three days we caught thirty tarpon, after which we sailed to Chokoloskee Bay and exploited Turners River which empties into the southern end of the bay.
The fish caught in Turners River ran generally from fifteen to thirty pounds, although I took one on the fly-rod measuring over five and another about six and one-half feet, the latter requiring about three hours to bring to terms. This fish was struck half a mile from the mouth of the river, and his first rush nearly emptied my little reel, that held less than a hundred yards of line.
Frank thought I was excited when I was only cross because he didn’t paddle faster when the fish was running away and slower when the line was coming in faster than I could get it on the reel.
As the fish leaped above the surface or darted away my fingers were burned by the friction of the line, which must never be slack nor ever allowed to overrun. Often the tarpon shot high in the air, snapping his head, while I shivered lest the hook tear loose. Sometimes the canoe was beside him and once he darted under it. With a quick turn of the wrist I slapped the rod down on the water, parallel with the canoe, and thrust it elbow-deep under the surface. The fish drew it crosswise of the canoe and I held it, with a finger pressing the reel until Frank could turn the craft around. I have often had to resort to this dodge, but have not always been as lucky as on this occasion. The tarpon carried us down the river, out into the bay, and back and forth until my arms were aching, my fingers numb and I was glad to change places with the camera-man for a full hour.
When the fish seemed weak I led the line to where Frank could reach it and gently draw the creature near enough to seize his jaw. Several times the tarpon leaped in the air and swam away with renewed vigor, but finally he was seized, held, dragged over the gunwale of the canoe and his liberty restored. Our big rod was broken in this stream by the first rush of a tarpon, which we think was the largest we saw during the trip. In three days we caught in this river fifty-six tarpon, thirty-two of which were on an eight-ounce rod.
We finished our fishing at Allen’s River, where the tarpon, with a few exceptions, weighed from three to ten pounds each, and where in two days we caught eleven, six of which were taken on the fly-rod.
To summarize, our catch was as follows:
Never twice, perhaps, would the relative abundance of tarpon in the places named be similar, but in gross, in the same season, they would doubtless tot up about the same. Excepting in Boca Grande, continuous fishing would quickly reduce the daily average, from diminished supply of fish and their increased sophistication.
Between these passes and streams are others in which tarpon, at times, abound. They can be found scattered through the broad, shallow waters and deeper channels of the whole, great Ten Thousand Islands. I have found them far out in the Everglades, in lagoons in the Big Cypress Swamp and even in a deep little lake, a hundred yards in diameter and ten miles from any other body of water.
I am principled against elaborate equipments, but, if you fish with a tarpon rod, you’ve got to pay three or four dollars for a line that you would dare show to a cultivated tarpon, and you really must have an automatic brake in the handle of your reel. Even then your knuckles will be knocked off if you don’t fit to it some sort of stop–a simple loop of string will do. I hate to advise it, but if you can spare the twenty, thirty or forty dollar tax for a powerful reel of fine workmanship, containing the automatic handle brake with stop, you will find it for your soul’s welfare. Then, unless your reel seat locks securely, lash the reel to the rod all you know how, and in any event lash the rear pillar of your reel to the rod, that a sixty-pound pull on the line may not fall with multiplied leverage on the weakest part of the reel. Most fishermen don’t do this, but all fishermen will wish they had–if they fish for tarpon long enough.
A light trout rod feels mushy and looks out of focus whenever the smallest tarpon is at the other end of it. Tarpon will rise to a fly, but the fly-rod must be very stiff or the fish, will seldom be hooked. A good bass rod, and trolling, are more appropriate for this fish which rises readily to a spoon. The hook should be short in the shank, for the mouth of the tarpon is hard and the leverage of a long shank breaks the imbedded hook with reasonable certainty. With the light rod, three or four inches of piano wire should be interposed between the hook and the swivel, and with the tarpon rod as many feet . No. 13 piano wire can be bought for seventy cents a pound in New York, or seven dollars a pound paid for it in Fort Myers.
Don’t carry that criminal weapon, the gaff hook. Don’t murder your game. To object to taking a tarpon for mounting, or other rational purpose, would seem fanatical, but to wantonly sacrifice these beautiful and harmless creatures, after they have added so greatly to your pleasure, is causeless cruelty. They can be measured without harming them and the cube of their length in feet, divided by two, gives their weight in pounds as nearly as needful. You can even take them aboard, as proof of your prowess. Of course a gaff hook would simplify this, as shooting them at first would make it easier to play them, and landing a tired tarpon by hand is almost as exciting as playing a fresh one.
No trust controls tarpon fishing. No sport on earth offers greater legitimate excitement. And half the glory of the game is in its humanity.
