arl, with little patches of vegetation. Crabs and
crab-holes were numerous. I saw a small shark and a couple of rays. When
we got to the middle of a big flat I saw the big, white, glistening
tails of bonefish sticking out of the water. We dropped anchor and, much
excited, were about to make casts, when R. C. lost his hat. He swore. We
had to pull up anchor and go get the hat. Unfortunately this scared the
fish. Also it presaged a rather hard-luck afternoon. In fishing, as in
many other things, if the beginning is tragedy all will be tragedy,
growing worse all the time. We moved around up above where I had seen
these bonefish, and there we dropped anchor. No sooner had we gotten our
baits overboard than we began to see bonefish tails off at quite some
distance. The thing to do, of course, was to sit right there and be
patient, but this was almost impossible for us. We moved again and
again, but we did not get any nearer to the fish. Finally I determined
that we would stick in one place. This we did, and the bonefish began to
come around. When they would swim close to the boat and see us they
would give a tremendous surge and disappear, as if by magic. But they
always left a muddy place in the water. The speed of these fish is
beyond belief. I could not cast where I wanted to; I tried again and
again. When I did get my bait off at a reasonable distance, I could feel
crabs nibbling at it. These pests robbed us of many a good bait. One of
them cut my line right in two. They seemed to be very plentiful, and
that must be why the bonefish were plentiful, too. R. C. kept losing
bait after bait, which he claimed was the work of crabs, but I rather
believed it to be the work of bonefish. It was too windy for us to tell
anything about the pressure of the line. It had to be quite a strong tug
to be felt at all. Presently I felt one, and instead of striking at once
I waited to see what would happen. After a while I reeled in to find my
bait gone. Then I was consoled by the proof that a bonefish had taken
the bait off for me. Another time three bonefish came along for my bait
and stuck their tails up out of the water, and were evidently nosing
around it, but I felt absolutely nothing on the line. When I reeled in
the bait was gone.

We kept up this sort of thing for two hours. I knew that we were doing
it wrong. R. C. said bad conditions, but I claimed that these were only
partly responsible for our failure. I knew that we moved about