My husband had two great battles in one night. He hooked an enormous tarpon which ran straight out to the gulf. He and his boat disappeared entirely from sight, and when after about two hours we went in search, we discovered him breathless and exhausted but triumphant, having just gaffed his fish, which measured 6 ft. 10 in., and weighed 180 lbs.! The second one measured 6 ft. 8 in., and weighed 175 lbs., a fine kill for one day at Captiva. These two, with mine, looked splendid specimens lying side by side in the moonlight.
It is if possible even more exciting to fish in the dark than during the day. When you have it all to do by "feel," it is a weird sensation, to struggle with an invisible foe, the only outward signs of which are the showers of phosphorescent spray, as the tarpon leaps and falls again. Of course on a moonlight night you can see all that is going on, and the tarpon looks like a dream fish as the silvery light glitters on his gleaming sides.
After ten days or so of fishing in the Pass we heard they were getting a good many fish at Port Myers, so we returned there, quitting our idyllic life at Captiva with much regret. It is a lovely trip by steamer between these two places. The river is thickly studded with islands of all shapes and sizes, some flat and low, covered with an impenetrable thicket of mangroves, others larger with a few houses and probably an hotel. We called at two or three of the more important ones, always finding the same scene, a dilapidated wooden pier, constructed on slender piles standing far out into the river, where most of the people gathered for the event of the day, the arrival of our boat. A queer-looking motley crowd they were, coloured people of all shades of blacks and browns and dirty yellows, languid, lazy-looking "crackers," as the native Floridians are called, with here and there a pretty girl in a sun bonnet, flirting with the lanky and very leggy young men in shirt sleeves and sombrero-like hats. All were lounging in the sun, most of them with a line, pulling up cat-fish, sea-trout, jack-fish, or sheepsheads, as fast as they put the bait in.
The sea is a wondrous emerald green, and we lean over the side of the boat watching the rolling porpoises, some of which follow us for miles, and catching an occasional glimpse of an evil-looking shark, or again passing through huge shoals of stingarees, like enormous submarine birds with their flapping wing-like sides. The day wears on in warm drowsiness till at last we approach Fort Myers, and are met at the dock with eager enquiries and congratulations on our successful expedition to the Pass. By the 15th of May the weather had become very hot, and the mosquitos very bad, and all the other fishermen having already taken their departure, we felt our time had also come. It was only a few days before we left, that I caught what was supposed to be a record fish in point of length, 7-ft. 1/2-in., weight, 156-lbs.
On a blazing morning we lingeringly and regretfully bade farewell to Fort Myers, where we made so many pleasant friends, and had such glorious sport, and we had a blazing ten hours passage on the Laurence up to Punta Gorda, so that we hailed the evening cool with thankfulness. At Punta Gorda the big hotel was closed, and the visitors and fishermen had all fled long since, but we found a room in which to pass the short time that elapsed till the train was ready to start for Jacksonville. There we arrived after twelve hot weary hours in the cars. We waited there two nights for the boat to New York. Jacksonville is the chief town in Florida, and a most bustling and amusing place to see.
We had an exquisite passage to New York, five days of absolutely calm and glorious weather, with scarcely a ripple on the sea, or a cloud in the intensely blue sky. We arrived to find New York shivering in cold winds and a prey to spring weather of the worst description, heavy showers and dreary intermittent gleams of sunshine, a strange contrast, indeed, to the perfect climate we had so recently left. Among our luggage was a gigantic coffin-like case, in which reposed the body of my first tarpon. I had insisted on having him stuffed and set up, as I was quite convinced at the time I could never catch another one so fine, though afterwards I rather regretted my haste, when I found I was destined to even greater success.
Hermione Murphy-Grimshaw.
Lombardi and Co. 13, Pall Mall East.
MISS WALROND.