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Updated: May 5, 2025
I saw a lonely heron silhouetted against the red glow of the western horizon. We fished trolling slowly a few hundred yards offshore and soon were fighting barracuda, which we needed so badly for swordfish bait. They strike easily, and put up a jerky kind of battle. They are a long, slim fish, yellow and white in the water, a glistening pale bronze and silver when landed.
Then I bent over to see half a dozen big gray streaks rush for what was left of that poor little bonita. The big barracuda with incredible speed and unbelievable ferocity rushed right to the side of the boat at the bonita. He got hold of it and R. C. in striking at him to gaff him hit him over the head several times. Then the gaff hook caught him and R. C. began to lift.
He made long runs and short runs and all kinds of runs, and for half an hour he defied any strain I dared put on him. Eventually I captured him, and I considered him superior to a tarpon of equal or even more weight. Barracuda are a despised fish, apparently because of their voracious and murderous nature.
Here was proof of what could be done with light tackle. About ten-thirty of this most delightful and favorable day we ran into a school of barracuda. R. C. hooked a small one, which was instantly set upon by its voracious comrades and torn to pieces. Then I had a tremendous strike, hard, swift, long everything to make a tingle of nerve and blood.
A fish floated by, spiraling up, its belly exposed. And about him growths drooped, trailed lifelessly through the water; while there was a now motionless bulk sinking to the obscurity of the depression floor. A weapon perfected on Terra to use against sharks and barracuda had worked here to kill what could have been more formidable prey.
SALT WATER GAME FISHING, by Charles F. Holder. Mr. Holder covers the whole field of his subject devoting a chapter each to such fish as the tuna, the tarpon, amberjack, the sail fish, the yellow-tail, the king fish, the barracuda, the sea bass and the small game fishes of Florida, Porto Rico, the Pacific Coast, Hawaii, and the Philippines.
I knew of nothing in the fishing game as tantalizing and despairing as this sight. We got rather near him this time, as he turned, facing us, and slowly swam in the direction of my bait. I could see the barracuda shining astern. Dan stopped the boat. I slowly let out line. The swordfish drifted back, and then sank. I waited, intensely, but really without hope.
But I incline to the belief that it is because the invariable use of heavy tackle has blinded the fishermen to the wonderful leaping and fighting qualities of this long-nosed, long-toothed sea-tiger. The few of us who have hooked barracuda on light tackle know him as a marvelous performer.
I know of one gentleman who told me he hooked a fish that he supposed was a barracuda, and while he was fighting this supposed barracuda he was interested in the leaping of a sailfish near his boat. His boatman importuned him to hurry in the barracuda so there would be a chance to go after the leaping sailfish. But it turned out that the sailfish was on his hook.
He leaped half out, and some one snapped a picture. It looked like a fortunate opportunity grasped. We tried him again, with flying-fish and barracuda. But he would not take either. Yet he loafed around on the surface, showing his colors, quite near the boat. He leaped clear out once, but I saw only the splash. Then he came out sideways, a skittering sort of plunge, lazy and heavy.
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