Barracuda are a despised fish, apparently because of their voracious and murderous nature. But I incline to the belief that it is because the invariable use of heavy tackle has blinded the fishermen to the wonderful leaping and fighting qualities of this long-nosed, long-toothed sea-tiger. The few of us who have hooked barracuda on light tackle know him as a marvelous performer. Van Campen Heilner wrote about a barracuda he caught on a ba.s.s rod, and he is not likely to forget it, nor will the reader of his story forget it.

R. C. had another strike, hooked his fish, and brought it in readily. It was a bonita of about five pounds, the first one my brother had ever caught. We were admiring his beautiful, subdued colors as he swam near the boat, when up out of the blue depths shot a long gray form as swift as lightning. It was a big barracuda. In his rush he cut that bonita in two. The captain grasped the line and yelled for us to get the gaffs. R.

C. dropped the rod and got the small gaff, and as I went for the big one I heard them both yell. Then I bent over to see half a dozen big gray streaks rush for what was left of that poor little bonita. The big barracuda with incredible speed and unbelievable ferocity rushed right to the side of the boat at the bonita. He got hold of it and R. C. in striking at him to gaff him hit him over the head several times. Then the gaff hook caught him and R. C. began to lift. The barracuda looked to me to be fully seven feet long and half as big around as a telegraph pole. He made a tremendous splash in the water. R. C. was deluged. He and the boatman yelled in their excitement. But R. C. was unable to hold the big fish on this small gaff, and I got there too late. The barracuda broke loose. Then, equally incredibly, he turned with still greater ferocity and rushed the bonita again, but before he could get to it another and smaller barracuda had hold of it. At this instant I leaned over with a club. With one powerful sweep I hit one of the barracuda on the head. When I reached over again the largest one was contending with a smaller one for the remains of the bonita. I made a vicious pa.s.s at the big one, missing him. Quick as I was, before I could get back, the big fellow had taken the head of the bonita and rushed off with it, tearing the line out of the captain's hands. Then we looked at one another. It had all happened in a minute. We were all wringing wet and panting from excitement and exertion. This is a gruesome tale of the sea and I put it here only to ill.u.s.trate the incomparable savageness of these tigers of the Gulf Stream.

The captain put the fish away and cleaned up the boat and we resumed fishing. I ate lunch holding the rod in one hand, loath to waste any time on this wonderful day. Sailfish were still jumping here and there and far away. The next thing to happen was that R. C. hooked a small kingfish, and at the same instant a big one came clear out in an unsuccessful effort to get my bait. This happened to be near the reef, and as we were going out I hooked a big grouper that tried out my small tackle for all it was worth. But I managed to keep him from getting on the bottom, and at length brought him in. The little six-ounce tip now looked like a buggy-whip that was old and worn out. After that nothing happened for quite a little spell. We had opportunity to get rested. Presently R. C. had a sailfish tap his bait and tap it again and tug at it and then take hold and start away. R.

C. hooked him and did it carefully, trying not to put too much strain on the line. Here is where great skill is required. But the line broke. After that he took one of my other tackles. Something went wrong with the engine and the captain had to shut down and we drifted.

I had a long line out and it gradually sank. Something took hold and I hooked it and found myself fast to a deep-sea, hard-fighting fish of some kind. I got him up eventually, and was surprised to see a great, broad, red-colored fish, which turned out to be a mutton-fish, much prized for food. I had now gotten six varieties of fish in the Gulf Stream and we were wondering what next. I was hoping it would be a dolphin or a waahoo. It happened, however, to be a beautiful cero mackerel, one of the shapeliest and most attractive fish in these waters. He is built something like the brook-trout, except for a much sharper head and wider fins and tail. But he is speckled very much after the manner of the trout. We trolled on, and all of a sudden raised a school of sailfish. They came up with a splashing rush very thrilling to see. One hit R. C.'s bait hard, and then another, by way of contrast, began to tug and chew at mine. I let the line out slowly.

And as I did so I saw another one follow R. C.'s mutilated bait which he was bringing toward the boat. He was a big purple-and-bronze fellow and he would have taken a whole bait if it could have been gotten to him. But he sheered away, frightened by the boat. I failed to hook my fish. It was getting along pretty well into the afternoon by this time and the later it got the better the small fish and kingfish seemed to bite. I caught one barracuda and six kingfish, while R. C. was performing a somewhat similar feat. Then he got a smashing strike from a sailfish that went off on a hard, fast rush, so that he hooked it perfectly. He jumped nine times, several of which leaps I photographed. He was a good-sized fish and active and strong. R. C.

had him up to the boat in thirty minutes, which was fine work for the light tackle. I made sure that the fish was as good as caught and I did not look to see where he was hooked. My boatman is not skilled in the handling of the fish when they are brought in. Few boatmen are. He took hold of the leader, and as he began to lift I saw that the hook was fast in the bill of the sailfish fully six inches from his mouth.

At that instant the sailfish began to thresh. I yelled to the boatman to let go, but either I was not quick enough or he did not obey, for the hook snapped free and the sailfish slowly swam away, his great purple-and-blue spotted sail waving in the water, and his bronze sides shining. And we were both glad that he had gotten away, because we had had the fun out of him and had taken pictures of him jumping, and he was now alive and might make another fisherman sport some day.

VII

BONEFISH

In my experience as a fisherman the greatest pleasure has been the certainty of something new to learn, to feel, to antic.i.p.ate, to thrill over. An old proverb tells us that if you wish to bring back the wealth of the Indias you must go out with its equivalent. Surely the longer a man fishes the wealthier he becomes in experience, in reminiscence, in love of nature, if he goes out with the harvest of a quiet eye, free from the plague of himself.

As a boy, fishing was a pa.s.sion with me, but no more for the conquest of golden sunfish and speckled chubs and h.o.r.n.y catfish than for the haunting sound of the waterfall and the color and loneliness of the cliffs. As a man, and a writer who is forever learning, fishing is still a pa.s.sion, stronger with all the years, but tempered by an understanding of the nature of primitive man, hidden in all of us, and by a keen reluctance to deal pain to any creature. The sea and the river and the mountain have almost taught me not to kill except for the urgent needs of life; and the time will come when I shall have grown up to that. When I read a naturalist or a biologist I am always ashamed of what I have called a sport. Yet one of the truths of evolution is that not to practise strife, not to use violence, not to fish or hunt--that is to say, not to fight--is to retrograde as a natural man. Spiritual and intellectual growth is attained at the expense of the physical.

Always, then, when I am fishing I feel that the fish are incidental, and that the reward of effort and endurance, the incalculable and intangible knowledge emanate from the swelling and infinite sea or from the shaded and murmuring stream. Thus I a.s.suage my conscience and justify the fun, the joy, the excitement, and the violence.

Five years ago I had never heard of a bonefish. The first man who ever spoke to me about this species said to me, very quietly with serious intentness: "Have you had any experience with bonefish?" I said no, and asked him what kind that was. His reply was enigmatical. "Well, don't go after bonefish unless you can give up all other fishing." I remember I laughed. But I never forgot that remark, and now it comes back to me clear in its significance. That fisherman read me as well as I misunderstood him.

Later that season I listened to talk of inexperienced bonefishermen telling what they had done and heard. To me it was absurd. So much fishing talk seems ridiculous, anyway. And the expert fishermen, wherever they were, received the expressive t.i.tles: "Bonefish Bugs and Bonefish Nuts!" Again I heard arguments about tackle rigged for these mysterious fish and these arguments fixed my vague impression. By and by some bonefishermen came to Long Key, and the first sight of a bonefish made me curious. I think it weighed five pounds--a fair-sized specimen.

Even to my prejudiced eye that fish showed cla.s.s. So I began to question the bonefishermen.

At once I found this type of angler to be remarkably reticent as to experience and method. Moreover, the tackle used was amazing to me.

Stiff rods and heavy lines for little fish! I gathered another impression, and it was that bonefish were related to dynamite and chain lightning. Everybody who would listen to my questions had different things to say. No two men agreed on tackle or bait or ground or anything. I enlisted the interest of my brother R. C., and we decided, just to satisfy curiosity, to go out and catch some bonefish. The complacent, smug conceit of fishermen! I can see now how funny ours was.

Fortunately it is now past tense. If I am ever conceited again I hope no one will read my stories.

My brother and I could not bring ourselves to try for bonefish with heavy tackle. It was preposterous. Three--four--five-pound fish! We had seen no larger. Ba.s.s tackle was certainly heavy enough for us. So in the innocence of our hearts and the a.s.surance of our vanity we sallied forth to catch bonefish.

That was four years ago. Did we have good luck? No! Luck has nothing to do with bonefishing. What happened? For one solid month each winter of those four years we had devoted ourselves to bonefishing with light tackle. We stuck to our colors. The s.p.a.ce of this whole volume would not be half enough to tell our experience--the amaze, the difficulty, the perseverance, the defeat, the wonder, and at last the achievement. The season of 1918 we hooked about fifty bonefish on three-six tackles--that is, three-ounce tips and six-thread lines--and we landed fourteen of them. I caught nine and R. C. caught five. R. C.'s eight-pound fish justified our contention and crowned our efforts.

To date, in all my experience, I consider this bonefish achievement the most thrilling, fascinating, difficult, and instructive. That is a broad statement and I hope I can prove it. I am prepared to state that I feel almost certain, if I spent another month bonefishing, I would become obsessed and perhaps lose my enthusiasm for other kinds of fish.

Why?

There is a multiplicity of reasons. My reasons range from the exceedingly graceful beauty of a bonefish to the fact that he is the best food fish I ever ate. That is a wide range. He is the wisest, shyest, wariest, strangest fish I ever studied; and I am not excepting the great _Xiphias gladius_--the broadbill swordfish. As for the speed of a bonefish, I claim no salmon, no barracuda, no other fish celebrated for swiftness of motion, is in his cla.s.s. A bonefish is so incredibly fast that it was a long time before I could believe the evidence of my own eyes. You see him; he is there perfectly still in the clear, shallow water, a creature of fish shape, pale green and silver, but crystal-like, a phantom shape, staring at you with strange black eyes; then he is gone. Vanished! Absolutely without your seeing a movement, even a faint streak! By peering keenly you may discern a little swirl in the water. As for the strength of a bonefish, I actually hesitate to give my impressions. No one will ever believe how powerful a bonefish is until he has tried to stop the rush and heard the line snap. As for his cunning, it is utterly baffling. As for his biting, it is almost imperceptible. As for his tactics, they are beyond conjecture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GAMEST FISH THAT SWIMS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WAAHOO]

I want to append here a few pa.s.sages from my note-books, in the hope that a bare, bald statement of fact will help my argument.

First experience on a bonefish shoal. This wide area of coral mud was dry at low tide. When we arrived the tide was rising. Water scarcely a foot deep, very clear. Bottom white, with patches of brown gra.s.s. We saw bonefish everywhere and expected great sport. But no matter where we stopped we could not get any bites. Schools of bonefish swam up to the boat, only to dart away. Everywhere we saw thin white tails sticking out, as they swam along, feeding with noses in the mud. When we drew in our baits we invariably found them half gone, and it was our a.s.sumption that the blue crabs did this.

At sunset the wind quieted. It grew very still and beautiful. The water was rosy. Here and there we saw swirls and tails standing out, and we heard heavy thumps of plunging fish. But we could not get any bites.

When we returned to camp we were told that the half of our soldier-crab baits had been sucked off by bonefish. Did not believe that.

Tide bothered us again this morning. It seems exceedingly difficult to tell one night before what the tide is going to do the next morning. At ten o'clock we walked to the same place we were yesterday. It was a bright, warm day, with just enough breeze to ruffle the water and make fishing pleasant, and we certainly expected to have good luck. But we fished for about three hours without any sign of a fish. This was discouraging and we could not account for it.

So we moved. About half a mile down the beach I thought I caught a glimpse of a bonefish. It was a likely-looking contrast to the white marl all around. Here I made a long cast and sat down to wait. My brother lagged behind. Presently I spied two bonefish nosing along not ten feet from the sh.o.r.e. They saw me, so I made no attempt to drag the bait near them, but I called to my brother and told him to try to get a bait ahead of them. This was a little after flood-tide. It struck me then that these singular fish feed up the beach with one tide and down with another.

Just when my brother reached me I got a nibble. I called to him and then stood up, ready to strike. I caught a glimpse of the fish. He looked big and dark. He had his nose down, fooling with my bait. When I struck him he felt heavy. I put on the click of the reel, and when the bonefish started off he pulled the rod down hard, taking the line fast. He made one swirl on the surface and then started up-sh.o.r.e. He seemed exceedingly swift. I ran along the beach until presently the line slackened and I felt that the hook had torn out. This was disappointment. I could not figure that I had done anything wrong, but I decided in the future to use a smaller and sharper hook. We went on down the beach, seeing several bonefish on the way, and finally we ran into a big school of them. They were right alongsh.o.r.e, but when they saw us we could not induce them to bite.

Every day we learn something. It is necessary to keep out of sight of these fish. After they bite, everything depends upon the skilful hooking of the fish. Probably it will require a good deal of skill to land them after you have hooked them, but we have had little experience at that so far. When these fish are along the sh.o.r.e they certainly are feeding, and presumably they are feeding on crabs of some sort. Bonefish appear to be game worthy of any fisherman's best efforts.

It was a still, hot day, without any clouds. We went up the beach to a point opposite an old construction camp. To-day when we expected the tide to be doing one thing it was doing another. Ebb and flow and flood-tide have become as difficult as Sanskrit synonyms for me. My brother took an easy and comfortable chair and sat up the beach, and I, like an ambitious fisherman, laboriously and adventurously waded out one hundred and fifty feet to an old platform that had been erected there. I climbed upon this, and found it a very precarious place to sit. Come to think about it, there is something very remarkable about the places a fisherman will pick out to sit down on. This place was a two-by-four plank full of nails, and I cheerfully availed myself of it and, casting my bait out as far as I could, I calmly sat down to wait for a bonefish.

It has become a settled conviction in my mind that you have to wait for bonefish. But all at once I got a hard bite. It quite excited me. I jerked and pulled the bait away from the fish and he followed it and took it again. I saw this fish and several others in the white patch of ground where there were not any weeds. But in my excitement I did not have out a long enough line, and when I jerked the fish turned over and got away. This was all right, but the next two hours sitting in the sun on that seat with a nail sticking into me were not altogether pleasurable. When I thought I had endured it as long as I could I saw a flock of seven bonefish swimming past me, and one of them was a whopper.

The sight revived me. I hardly breathed while that bunch of fish swam right for my bait, and for all I could see they did not know it was there. I waited another long time. The sun was hot--there was no breeze--the heat was reflected from the water. I could have stood all this well enough, but I could not stand the nails. So I climbed down off my perch, having forgotten that all this time the tide had been rising.

And as I could not climb back I had to get wet, to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of my brother. After that I fished from the sh.o.r.e.

Presently my brother shouted and I looked up to see him pulling on a fish. There was a big splash in the water and then I saw his line running out. The fish was heading straight for the framework on which I had been seated and I knew if he ever did get there he would break the line. All of a sudden I saw the fish he had hooked. And he reached the framework all right!

I had one more strike this day, but did not hook the fish. It seems this bonefishing takes infinite patience. For all we can tell, these fish come swimming along with the rising tide close in to sh.o.r.e and they are exceedingly shy and wary. My brother now has caught two small bonefish and each of them gave a good strong bite, at once starting off with the bait. We had been under the impression that it was almost impossible to feel the bonefish bite. It will take work to learn this game.

Yesterday we went up on the north side of the island to the place near the mangroves where we had seen some bonefish. Arriving there, we found the tide almost flood, with the water perfectly smooth and very clear and about a foot deep up at the mangrove roots. Here and there at a little distance we could see splashes. We separated, and I took the outside, while R. C. took the inside close to the mangroves. We waded along. Before I had time to make a cast I saw a three-pound bonefish come sneaking along, and when he saw me he darted away like an arrow. I made a long cast and composed myself to wait. Presently a yell from R.

C. electrified me with the hope that he had hooked a fish. But it turned out that he had only seen one. He moved forward very cautiously in the water and presently made a cast. He then said that a big bonefish was right near his hook, and during the next few minutes this fish circled his bait twice, crossing his line. Then he counted out loud: one, two, three, four, five bonefish right in front of him, one of which was a whopper. I stood up myself and saw one over to my right, of about five pounds, sneaking along with his nose to the bottom. When I made a cast over in his direction he disappeared as suddenly as if he had dissolved in the water. Looking out to my left, I saw half a dozen bonefish swimming toward me, and they came quite close. When I moved they vanished. Then I made a cast over in this direction. The bonefish came back and swam all around my bait, apparently not noticing it. They were on the feed, and the reason they did not take our bait must have been that they saw us. We fished there for an hour without having a sign of a bite, and then we gave it up.

To-day about flood-tide I had a little strike. I jerked hard, but failed to see the fish, and then when I reeled in I found he still had hold of it. Then I struck him, and in one little jerk he broke the leader.

I just had a talk with a fellow who claims to know a good deal about bonefishing. He said he had caught a good many ranging up to eight pounds. His claim was that soldier crabs were the best bait. He said he had fished with professional boatmen who knew the game thoroughly. They would pole the skiff alongsh.o.r.e and keep a sharp lookout for what he called bonefish mud. And I a.s.sume that he meant muddy places in the water that had been stirred up by bonefish. Of course, any place where these little swirls could be seen was very likely to be a bonefish bank.

He claimed that it was necessary to hold the line near the reel between the forefingers, and to feel for the very slightest vibration. Bonefish have a sucker-like mouth. They draw the bait in, and smash it.

Sometimes, of course, they move away, drawing out the line, but that kind of a bite is exceptional. It is imperative to strike the fish when this vibration is felt. Not one in five bonefish is hooked.

We have had two northers and the water grew so cold that it drove the fish out. The last two or three days have been warm and to-day it was hot. However, I did not expect the bonefish in yet, and when we went in bathing at flood-tide I was very glad to see two fish. I hurried out and got my rod and began to try. Presently I had a little strike. I waited and it was repeated; then I jerked and felt the fish. He made a wave and that was the last I knew of him.

Reeling in, I looked at my bait, to find that it had been pretty badly chewed, but I fastened it on again and made another cast. I set down the rod. Then I went back after the bucket for the rest of the bait. Upon my return I saw the line jerking and I ran to the rod. I saw a little splash, and a big white tail of a bonefish stick out of the water. I put my thumb on the reel and jerked hard. Instantly I felt the fish, heavy and powerful. He made a surge and then ran straight out. The line burned my thumb so I could not hold it. I put on the click and the fish made a swifter, harder run for at least a hundred yards, and he tore the hook out.

This makes a number of fish that have gotten away from me in this manner. It is exasperating and difficult to explain. I have to use a pretty heavy sinker in order to cast the bait out. I have arranged this sinker, which has a hole through it, so that the line will run freely.

This seems to work all right on the bite, but I am afraid it does not work after the fish is hooked. That sinker drags on the bottom. This is the best rigging that I can plan at the present stage of the game. I have an idea now that a bonefish should be hooked hard and then very carefully handled.

I fished off the beach awhile in front of the cabin. We used both kinds of crabs, soldier and hermit. I fished two hours and a half, from the late rising tide to the first of the ebb, without a sign or sight of a fish. R. C. finally got tired and set his rod and went in bathing. Then it happened. I heard his reel singing and saw his rod nodding; then I made a dash for it. The fish was running straight out, heavy and fast, and he broke the line.