turn outside where I had been spending days
after sailfish. Scarcely had these men left the reef when five sailfish
loomed up and all of them, with that perversity and capriciousness which
makes fish so incomprehensible, tried to climb on board the boat. One, a
heavy fish, did succeed in hooking himself and getting aboard. I could
multiply events of this nature, but this is enough to illustrate my
point--that there is a vast difference between several fishermen out of
thousands bringing in several sailfish in one season and one fisherman
deliberately going after sailfish with light tackle and eventually
getting them.

It is not easy. On the contrary, it is extremely hard. It takes infinite
patience, and very much has to be learned that can be learned only by
experience. But it is magnificent sport and worth any effort. It makes
tarpon-fishing tame by comparison. Tarpon-fishing is easy. Anybody can
catch a tarpon by going after him. But not every fisherman can catch a
sailfish. One fisherman out of a hundred will get his sailfish, but only
one out of a thousand will experience the wonder and thrill and beauty
of the sport.

Sailfishing is really swordfishing, and herein lies the secret of my
success at Long Key. I am not satisfied that the sailfish I caught were
all Marlin and brothers to the Pacific Marlin. The Atlantic fish are
very much smaller than those of the Pacific, and are differently marked
and built. Yet they are near enough alike to be brothers.

There are three species that I know of in southern waters. The
_Histiophorus_, the sailfish about which I am writing and of which
descriptions follow. There is another species, _Tetrapturus albidus_,
that is not uncommon in the Gulf Stream. It is my impression that this
species is larger. The Indians, with whom I fished in the Caribbean,
tell of a great swordfish--in Spanish the _Aguja de casta_, and this
species must be related to _Xiphias_, the magnificent flatbilled
swordfish of the Atlantic and Pacific.

* * * * *

The morning of my greatest day with sailfish I was out in the Gulf
Stream, seven miles offshore, before the other fishermen had gotten out
of bed. We saw the sun rise ruddy and bright out of the eastern sea, and
we saw sailfish leap as if to welcome the rising of the lord of day. A
dark, glancing ripple wavered over the water; there was just enough
swell to make seeing fish easy.

I was using a rod that weighed ni