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Baiting with a whole mullet or whiting, or one of the arms of an octopus, the most amateurish fisherman cannot fail to hook two or three Jew-fish in a night. At one place on the Hastings River, called Blackman's Point, a party of four of us took thirteen fish, the heaviest of which was 62 lb. and the lightest 9 lb.
In deep water off the coast these great fish are occasionally caught during daylight, but a dull, cloudy night is best, when they may be caught from the beach or river bank in shallow water. Very stout lines and heavy hooks are used, for a 90-lb. or l00-lb. jew-fish is very common.
They now steered due west for the Ladrones. As they might possibly be fifty or sixty days before making Guam, the crews were at once put on short allowance, having only one meal a day. In three days they had consumed their salted Jew-fish, and had now nothing but the maize on which to subsist.
The fancy chaps, who must have ev'rythin' jist so, gen'rally gits fish. But for all that, I don't like their way of fishin', and I take no stock in it myself. I've been fishin', on and off, ever since I was a little boy, and I've caught nigh every kind there is, from the big jew-fish and cavalyoes down South, to the trout and minnies round about here.
Everything, it is said, has its use in this world, and the octopus is eminently useful to the Australian line fisherman, for the bream, trevally, flathead, jew-fish, and the noble schnapper dearly love its tough, white flesh, especially after the creature has been held over a flame for a few minutes, so that the mottled skin may be peeled off.
Jew-fish and black sea-bass of over 400 lb have been taken on rod and line, and there are many other fine sporting fish of large size which give the angler exciting hours on the reefs of Florida, or the coasts of California, Texas or Mexico. Practically all of them are taken with a fish-bait either live or dead, and used stationary on the bottom or in mid-water trailed behind a boat.
In Demerara, a fish called the Hassar makes a floating cradle of grass or leaves for its eggs, over which it watches carefully, being ready to defend it bravely when attacked; thus in Australia, an eel called the Jew-fish was one day noticed swimming round and round a clear place among the reeds, and it turned out that it was guarding a nest of stones which it had placed in the river bed.
We could distinguish the jew-fish, the saw-fish, and many other denizens of those Southern waters, which, disturbed by the schooner's keel, darted away in all directions in a blaze of light, every scale on their bodies being clearly defined. Indeed, they looked like meteors, their rapid course marked by trails of light. The next day the wind was so light that we made but slow progress.
The saw-fish, to which I have before alluded as harrying the swarms of sea-salmon, also make havoc with the jew-fish, and very often are caught on jew-fish lines.
You remember that beautiful nature-poem: "'The sea-gull And the eagul And the dipper-dapper-duck And the Jew-fish And the blue-fish And the turtle in the muck; And the squir'l And the girl And the flippy floppy bat Are differ-ent As gent from gent. So let it go at that!" "What hideous nonsense," she laughed, in open encouragement; but he could recall nothing more or pretended he couldn't.
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