The channel bass, or red drum, is a bronze fish that runs up to 40 or 50 lb. weight, and gives good sport on a rod in the surf. So many of the smaller sporting fish are caught in the surf on the Florida coast, that I have often wondered whether this is a merely local habit, due to their dread of the sharks outside, or whether indeed sea-fishermen at home neglect the more productive surf, in their haste to fish the extreme end of a long pier or the deeper waters attainable in boats.
The black grouper is a great trouble to the tarpon fisher, for on some days it seizes bait after bait, and at once darts into some convenient crevice in the coral. The puzzled angler strikes again and again, and each time finds himself hitched into the rock, which often entails the loss of all his tackle with many feet of line. Only the old hand knows the real source of the trouble and promptly changes his ground, but as those fish are more or less numerous all through the pass, the real secret of avoiding them is to fish a few feet higher.
CHAPTER XI
Spotted Eels, Crab Eaters, Surf Whiting, Moon Fish, Leather Jackets, Trigger Fish, and Mullet.
A CURIOUS SNAKE-LIKE EEL, WITHOUT SLIME, USUALLY FOUND STRANDED AFTER A STORM.