Bass, Pike, Perch, and Others Part 24

VIII-I, 20; A. III, 18; jaws about equal; no teeth on vomer or palatines; teeth on jaws slender, somewhat movable; preopercle finely serrate; two dorsal fins, somewhat connected; vertical fins falcate in the adult; first soft ray of dorsal filamentous; ventral fin with a large accessory scale.

There are a number of angel-fishes in Florida, remarkable for their bizarre and beautiful coloration, but of no importance to the angler as they do not often take the baited hook, their very small mouths and weak teeth being only adapted for feeding on the minute organisms about the coral reefs. The common angel-fish, or spade-fish, is more sombre in hue than the others, and belongs to a different family, _Ephippidae_; it has a somewhat larger mouth, and is more widely distributed. It was described by Broussonet, in 1782, from Jamaica, who named it _faber_, or "blacksmith," though why is difficult to imagine, except that it is dark in its general hue, with s.m.u.tty cross bars. It is very abundant from the South Atlantic coast to South America, and is not uncommon, occasionally, as far north as Cape Cod. It is very common on the east and west coasts of Florida.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE ANGEL-FISH]

[_Chaetodipterus faber_]

[Ill.u.s.tration THE TURBOT]

[_Balistes carolinensis_]

It has a short, very deep body, nearly round in outline, and very much compressed; it is almost as deep as long. Its head is short and deep, with its profile nearly vertical. The mouth is small, with slender, movable teeth, on jaws only; the soft dorsal and a.n.a.l fins are quite large and winglike, extending far backward nearly to the tail; they are quite scaly, which adds much to their thickness and stiffness; the caudal fin is broad and nearly square.

The general color is usually gray or slate color, often bluish with iridescent tints; there are several dusky, broad vertical bars across the body, becoming obsolete or faint with age.

It feeds on small marine organisms, and grows to a length of two feet, occasionally, though its usual size is ten or twelve inches, and average weight from one to three or four pounds. It is an excellent food-fish, though its good qualities in this respect are not generally known. It sp.a.w.ns in the spring.

It is usually taken in seines in the bays of the Gulf coast, and salted with mullet and sheepshead by the fishermen. It can be caught by the angler with a very small hook, No. 5 or 6, and cut clam or conch bait.

It is a fair game-fish on light tackle, which may be the same as advised for the Bermuda chub.

THE PIN-FISH

(_LaG.o.don rhomboides_)

_LaG.o.don rhomboides._ The Pin-fish. Body elongate, elliptical; head 3-1/5; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; scales 10-65-17; D. XII, 11; A.

III, 11; mouth moderate, maxillary not reaching front of orbit; head flattened; snout pointed; profile not very steep; 4 incisors in each jaw, all deeply notched; two series of molars in each jaw; dorsal fin single, with high spines; caudal fin deeply forked.

The pin-fish, also called sailor's choice and bream in some localities, belongs to the family _Sparidae_, and is closely related to the sheepshead of that family, having incisor and molar teeth. It differs from it in the conformation of the skull.

The pin-fish was first described by Linnaeus, in 1766, from specimens sent to him by Dr. Garden from South Carolina. He named it _rhomboides_, meaning "rhomboid," from the shape of its body. It is abundant on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, extending south to Cuba, and occasionally north to Cape Cod. It is found in all bays on the east and west coasts of Florida.

Its body is symmetrical, being rather evenly curved on both dorsal and ventral lines, and rather deep; its head is large, with a depression in front of the eye. Its color is olivaceous, darkest on the back, with bluish silvery sides, and narrow horizontal stripes of blue and gold, alternating, and six faint, broad vertical bars; it has a dark spot on the shoulder at the top of the gill-cover; the dorsal fin is bluish with gilt edge; the a.n.a.l fin is bluish with yellow band; the caudal fin is yellow, faintly barred; the ventral fins are yellowish; the pectoral fins are plain.

It is a pretty fish, and is usually abundant wherever found. It feeds on small mollusks and barnacles, resorting to old wharves and about the mangroves where such food abounds. It grows to a length of six or eight inches, and though small, it is a good pan-fish. It sp.a.w.ns in the spring. The same light tackle used for the pig-fish and pork-fish can be utilized for the pin-fish, with small, strong hooks, as Sproat bend, No.

4 or 5, on gut snells. The ends of piers and wharves, in comparatively shallow water, are favorable localities for fishing.

THE SQUIRREL-FISH

(_Holocentrus ascensionis_)

_Holocentrus ascensionis._ The Squirrel-fish. Body oblong, moderately compressed, the back a little elevated; head 3-2/3; depth 3-2/5; eye 3; scales 5-50-7; D. XI, 15; A. IV, 10; head compressed, narrowed forward; opercle with a strong spine above, below with the edge sharply serrated; preopercle with a strong spine at its angle; mouth small, little oblique, with the lower jaw projecting somewhat; eye excessively large; upper lobe of caudal fin the longest; soft dorsal fin pointed, as high as the body; third a.n.a.l spine very strong, as long as longest a.n.a.l ray.

The squirrel-fish belongs to the family _Holocentridae_, the species comprising that family having very rough or spinous scales, a single dorsal fin, deeply divided, with the spines very tall; the caudal fin deeply forked; the a.n.a.l fin with four spines; and a very large eye.

The squirrel-fish belongs to the West Indian fauna, ranging from the Florida Keys to South America. It was first described by Osbeck, in 1771, from Ascension Island, who named it for that locality. It is not uncommon along the reefs, where I have taken it a number of times. Its body is oblong, moderately compressed, its depth about a third of its length, with the back slightly elevated, and the ventral outline nearly straight. Its mouth is small, the eye enormously large, and the caudal fin deeply forked. Its color is bright crimson, with a darker shade on the back, and a somewhat lighter tint below, with silver streaks along the sides. The fins are also red, some bordered with olive; the head is red above, with an oblique white bar running back and down from the eye.

It feeds about the reefs on small fishes and marine invertebrates, and grows to two feet in length, occasionally, but is usually found smaller.

It is a good food-fish and sells at sight in the market. It is a remarkably handsome and attractive fish in appearance.

In one of Stockton's stories, John Gayther, the gardener, tells of the curious and beautiful things to be seen on a coral reef in the tropics, with the aid of a long box with a gla.s.s in the end. His description applies just as well to the vicinity of the Dry Tortugas, where I have often viewed the wonders of the sea-floor through a sponge-gla.s.s, a wooden pail with a gla.s.s bottom:--

"Where the water is so clear that with a little help you can see everything just as if it were out in the open air,--bushes and vines and hedges; all sorts of waving plants, all made of seaweed and coral, growing in the white sand; and instead of birds flying about among their branches, there were little fishes of every color: canary-colored fishes, fishes like robin-redb.r.e.a.s.t.s, and others which you might have thought were blue jays if they had been up in the air instead of down in the water."

THE TURBOT

(_Balistes carolinensis_)

_Balistes carolinensis._ The Turbot. The fishes comprising the family _Balistidae_ are characterized by an ovate body, much compressed; small and low mouth, with separate incisor teeth; eye very high; gill opening a small slit; the absence of ventral fins; the dorsal fins widely separated, the first with but 1 to 3 spines. The turbot has a very deep compressed body, covered with thick, rough plates or scales; head 3-1/4; depth 1-3/4; eye small; scales about 60; about 35 scales in an oblique series from vent upward and forward; D. III, 27; A. 25; third dorsal spine stouter than the second and remote from it; plates on head similar to those on body; caudal lobes produced; soft dorsal high; ventral flaps large, supported by several pungent spines; lateral line very slender, undulating, and very crooked, showing only when scales are dry; a groove before the eye; larger plates behind the gill opening.

The turbot, or leather-fish, belongs to the family _Balistidae_, or trigger-fishes. It was first described by Gmelin, in 1788, from Carolina, from one of Dr. Garden's specimens, Gmelin being a coadjutor of Linnaeus, to whom the specimen was sent. The locality from which the type specimen was sent accounts for its name.

The turbot, as it is called by the Key West fishermen, is an inhabitant of tropical waters, and is abundant on the South Atlantic coast and along the Florida Keys; it is known also from the Mediterranean Sea.

Like all of the trigger-fishes it has a curious form and appearance. It is as deep as long, and slants both ways from the dorsal fin above and from the ventral flap below, presenting somewhat of a diamond shape. The head is triangular, and the fins are thick and leathery. The first dorsal spine is locked when erect by the second, or "trigger." The soft dorsal and a.n.a.l fins are opposite each other, and are of similar size and shape. The color is olive-gray, or slate color, with some purplish spots on the back; two obscure cross bars are under the second dorsal fin; a ring of blue spots alternating with greenish streaks are about the eye; there are violet marks on the sides of the snout; the first dorsal is spotted and clouded with bluish; the second dorsal has pale yellowish spots, with rows of blue ones, separated by greenish reticulations; the a.n.a.l fin is colored like the second dorsal; the pectoral fins are bluish with olive spots.

The leather-fish, or turbot, resorts to rocky shoals and coral reefs, feeding on the small marine organisms that are abundant in such localities. Nothing is known of its breeding habits. It grows to a foot in length and is considered a good food-fish by the people of Key West.

The thick skin and rough scales are pared off together with a sharp knife by the fishermen when delivered to a customer. It is caught, with the grunts, porgies, etc., in the channels among the keys and reefs with the baited hook, and also in wire traps. Very small hooks must be used for the turbot, as it has a very small mouth. Cut crawfish, conch, or barnacles are good baits.

CONCLUSION

In closing this account it occurs to me to say that the angler who has a genuine love for the finny tribe, and who has never visited the sunny waters of Florida, has in store an experience of joy and delight in the wonderful variety of its fishes. Some idea may be formed of their number from the fact that I have collected nearly three hundred species in the fresh and salt water of that sub-tropical wonderland. And the fishing lasts the year round, and is always good, except when an unusually cold "norther" is blowing. The warm-water species, like the tarpon, lady-fish, and ten-pounder, are more plentiful, and extend their range farther northward in the summer. At that season all of the inlets and pa.s.ses of both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts abound with them; but the winter visitor will find them in Biscayne Bay, Barnes Sound, Cards Sound, and south-west along the keys to the Dry Tortugas. The brackish water species will be found all winter in the bays and estuaries of either coast.

A just idea of the fishing resources of Florida twenty years ago--and it is much the same today--may, perhaps, be gathered from the following excerpts from my "Camping and Cruising in Florida":--

"At flood-tide the channels under the mangroves teem with redfish, groupers, and snappers, while near the beds of c.o.o.n oysters are schools of sheepshead and drum. In fact, all of the pa.s.ses and inlets of the Gulf coast are fairly alive with fishes, from the mullet to sharks and sawfish. While lying in his bunk, one can hear all night long the voices of the deep, under and around him.

"The hollow, m.u.f.fled boom of the drumfish seems to be just under one's pillow; schools of sparoid fishes feeding on sh.e.l.l-fish at the bottom, sounds like the snapping of dry twigs on a hot fire; while a hundred tiny hammers in the hands of ocean sprites are tapping on the keel. Then is heard the powerful rush of the tarpon, the blowing of porpoises, and the snapping jaws of the sea-trout among the swarms of mullet, which, leaping from the surface by thousands, awake the watery echoes like showers of silvery fishes falling in fitful gusts and squalls.

"Sanibel Island, at the entrance of Caloosa Bay and opposite Punta Ra.s.sa, is renowned for its fine fishing. The angler can here fairly revel in piscatorial abandon and cover himself with piscine glory and fish scales. If ichthyc variety is the spice of the angler's life, Sanibel and its sister keys are the Spice Islands. Sharks, rays, and devil-fish, tarpon and jewfish, redfish, snappers and groupers, Spanish mackerel and kingfish, sea-trout, bonito and cavallies, ladyfish and sergeant-fish, sheepshead and drum, a host of smaller fry--spots, grunts, and porgies, and the ever-present and ubiquitous catfish--can here be jerked, and yanked and snaked, and pulled and hauled, until the unfortunate angler will lament that he was ever born--under the last but not least of the zodiacal signs."

The foregoing excerpts relate to fishing on the Gulf coast, but on the east coast, while the variety of fishes is not so great, the angler will find enough and to spare, and many that are worthy of his best efforts.

Large-mouth black-ba.s.s are plentiful in Tomoka River, near Ormond on the Halifax, and in Elbow Creek, Turkey Creek. Sebastian River, Taylor's Creek, and the St. Lucie River, all tributaries of Indian River. At the mouths of these streams, brackish-water fishes will be found in more or less abundance, comprising most of the species inhabiting the Gulf coast. Some of the best localities are at Daytona. New Smyrna, Rock Ledge, Indian River Inlet, Gilbert's Bar, and Jupiter Inlet. Still farther south the fishing is much better, notably at Lake Worth, and on Hillsboro' and New rivers. Mangrove snappers, bluefish, amber-jacks, and barracudas are especially abundant south of Indian River Inlet, more so than on the Gulf coast. In all of the fresh-water lakes in the interior of the state the angler will be amply rewarded, as large-mouth black-ba.s.s, calico ba.s.s, warmouth perch, and bream are in most of them.

As a matter of fact, one can hardly go amiss for some kind of fishing in Florida, wherever there is water, salt or fresh, provided one proceeds with patience and intelligence, and with a due regard for the amenities of the gentle art.

Perhaps the queer descriptions and homely comparisons of some of the fishes as given by my negro boatman from the Bahamas, whom I have before mentioned, may not be uninteresting. I always employed him when possible, for he was a good fisherman and sailor, and had a never-ending fund of anecdotes; and being a close observer, he had a good general idea of the fishes of the locality. I always encouraged him in his quaint and original remarks about fishes, and in this way obtained considerable knowledge of their habits from this faithful Achates. Some of his observations, as I remember them, and which seem very odd in his Bahamian lingo, were as follows:--

"Vell, sir, it's curious 'ow some fish is made; but w'atever their model in length, beam, and draft, there is some good reason vy they is built so."

"Yes," I would answer, "they are all endowed by Nature with the shape best fitted for their mode of life and environment."

"Vell, 'wironment or not, as you say, and I'm not gainsayin' it, there's as much diff'rence in their model as atween a man-o'-war 'awk and an 'ummin'-bird. Now, sir, just look at the stingaree and the wipporee; they is flat as pancakes, and goes a-skimmin' along like a turkey buzzard, or a-wabblin' like a jolly-boat in the breakers, and then they flops down on a sandbank like a flounder, when feedin', 'cause their mouth is hunderneath like a shark. And they crawls along on their belly a-gobblin' hup the periwinkles and fiddlers, and crounches 'em vith a set of teeth like a pair o'mill-stones."

"Yes," I a.s.sented, "the rays are curious creatures, and have very remarkable teeth."

"Now, on the hother 'and, sir, look at the moonfish. They is all length and draft and no beam, like the 'ind weel of a vaggon; it couldn't cast a shadder if it was facin' the sun. And the angel-fish 'aven't much more beam to swear by. Now, sir, hall these slimjims 'ave small mouths and pinchers for teeth, and goes a-nosin' 'round the rocks, and a-vorkin' of theirselves thro' the narrow crannies, and a-pinchin' hoff the coral-bugs and sea-lice. Now, sir, a flounder is wicey wersy from a moonfish, it 'asn't hany draft, and don't carry any sail to speak of, and so it 'ides in the sand a-waitin' for sumpthin' to turn hup in the vay o'grub."