We inaugurated the releasing of small Marlin swordfish.

There was a great increase in the interest taken in the use of light
tackle.

We owe the latter stride toward conservation and sportsmanship to Mr.
James Jump, and to Lone Angler, and to President Coxe of the Tuna Club.
I had not been entirely in sympathy with their feats of taking Marlin
swordfish and tuna on light tackle. My objections to the use of too
light tackle have been cited before in this book. Many fish break away
on the nine-thread. I know this because I tried it out. Fifteen of those
small tuna, one after another, broke my line on the first rush. But I
believe that was my lack of skill with handling of rod and boat.

As for Marlin, I have always known that I could take some of these
roundbill swordfish on light tackle. But likewise there have been some
that could not have been taken so, and these are the swordfish I have
fished for.

Nevertheless, I certainly do not want to detract from Jump's
achievements, as I will show. They have been remarkable. And they have
attracted wide attention to the possibilities of light tackle. Thus Mr.
Jump has done conservative angling an estimable good, as well as placed
himself in a class alone.

The use of light tackle by experts for big game fish of the sea has come
to be an established practice in American angling. A few years ago, when
sport with light tackle was exceptional, it required courage to flaunt
its use in the faces of fishermen of experience and established
reputation. Long Key, now the most noted fishing resort on the Atlantic
coast, was not many years back a place for hand-lines and huge rods and
tackle, and boat-loads of fish for one man. It has become a resort for
gentlemen anglers, and its sportsmen's club claims such experts and fine
exponents of angling as Heilner, Lester, Cassiard, Crowninshield,
Conill, the Schutts, and others, who can safely be trusted to advance
the standard. Fishermen are like sheep--they follow the boldest leaders.
And no one wants to be despised by the elect. Long Key, with its
isolation, yet easy accession, its beauty and charm, its loneliness and
quiet, its big game fish, will become the Mecca of high-class
light tackle anglers, who will in time answer for the ethics and
sportsmanship of the Atlantic seaboard.

On the Pacific side the light tackle advocates have had a different row
to hoe. With nothing but keen, fair, honest, and splendid zealousness
Mr. James Ju