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26	_	MEXICAN	GULF	COAST	ILLUSTKATED.
FISHING.
The sound, bays, and adjacent streams present to the most devoted votary of the rod and line a field for sport unsurpassed and rarely equalled ■ elsewhere. The scientific angler can hardly wish for finer opportunities to employ the skill he possesses in his favorite pastime. The most numerous kinds of the finny tribe which abound in these waters are red fish, green trout, pompano, sheep head, flounder, mullet, carancke, jack fish, and the gamest of all, the silver-fish, known in Florida as the tarpon, aud called by r the fishermen of French extraction on the Coast, the grande ecale. This is indeed the king of all the game fishes. Specimens have been caught in the waters of the sound six feet in length. Says a noted disciple of Isaac Walton—C. F. Holder, in describing one hooked among the Florida Keys: “Imagine a fish of this size resembling a gigantic shad with the life and activity of a blue fish, its enormous scales below the median line a solid mass of silver, as if molten metal had been poured upon them.” The large scales of a silver fish, one that is six feet long, measures three and a fourth by three and a half inches. The tarpon, or silver fish, is the Megalops ailanticus of the naturalist, a member of the family Elopidoe, and may be considered a gigantic herring. The maximum length of this splendid fish is over eight feet, and their greatest weight three hundred pounds. The-medium size is about five feet in length and the weight is eighty to one hundred pounds.
In pursuit of information for this part of the subject under consideration the writer sought an interview with an “ancient fisherman,” answering to the patronymic of Tony Pons, at Biloxi, to whom an informant gave the recommendations of a life-long experience as a Coast fisherman
•	v and of truthfulness. In a running and somewhat rambling conversation with Tony, we gathered quite a fund of fish lore.
The sheephead is a very fine fish and easily caught. The red snapper is one of the most beautiful fish in the Gulf of Mexico and among the gamiest. Like a polished coat or mail his crimson scales dazzle and sparkle in the sun; while his flesh is the delightof the epicure. The speckled trout is taken in large numbers on the Coast, and is one of the finest of the numerous tribes of fish in its waters. The red fish is a great favorite and justly so. The pompano ranks among those of highest quality. The flounder is a prime favorite with many persons. It is not often caught with hook and line, though an instance came within the writer’s knowledge in which a seven-year-old lad, Master Hugh Hudson, landed a fine specimen at Ocean Springs not long ago. The usual way to capture them is with a bright light