Don't risk a shot if you have doubts as to its safety.
Don't try long gallery shots. It is cruel.
Don't fire at your birds, but in front of them. The exceptions to this, are birds coming direct to you or going away.
Don't potter in your aim, but aim and fire quickly.
Don't, if you can help it, shut either eye.
Don't wound. If you can't kill neatly, don't fire.
Don't fire at a pheasant's tail feathers, but try to intercept his head.
Don't climb over stiles with a loaded gun.
Don't keep your cartridges in the gun, except when actually waiting for game.
Don't talk when shooting, or if you must do so, let it be in a low voice.
Don't fire at fur going directly from or to you.
Don't talk about shooting except to sportsmen and sportswomen.
Don't stay out too long and get over-tired, or some or the foregoing warnings may be forgotten.
(_With a Tarpon caught at Fort Myers. Weight, 147-lbs. Length, 6-ft. 7-in. Time, 1 hour 25 minutes._)]
Whether there be any truth in the saying "that opportunity makes the thief," it is decidedly the case that it makes the sportswoman, for although I now find myself in such goodly company, low be it spoken that until I went to Florida I had never fished in my life. Such being the case, it will easily be understood that when I found myself one blazing day in a very small boat, with a sturdy rod in my hand, listening to a very black guide retailing many wonderful stories of what tarpon did when they were hooked, my feelings were chiefly those of trepidation. However I was destined to have a large and varied experience with sharks, jew fish, bass and many other monsters of the deep, before the eventful day arrived on which I killed my first tarpon, and here let me advise anyone who may be meditating an expedition to Florida for tarpon fishing, to beware of going to Punta Gorda.
This most charming and picturesque place was once a very favourite haunt of the tarpon, but owing to works which have been recently started, which entail a constant passing of steamers up and down the river, the fish have quite deserted it. We fished there for six whole weeks, starting often at 5 a.m. and generally staying out till 7.30 or so, and we never saw one fish the whole time. We proved a fruitful source of revenue to the guides and boatmen who had ever some fresh reason for our non-success, and we had on the whole a charming time, for the hotel is comfort itself and is a perfect paradise of flowers. We had lovely expeditions up the river, and any amount of bass, sea trout and other fishing, but neither we nor anyone else ever saw a tarpon. We got tired of this at last and decided to move further down, to a place called Fort Myers on the Caloosahatchie River. This we found to be an extremely pretty little town, with low white-painted houses, nestling in roses and magnolias, surrounded by gardens full of brilliant-coloured flowers and luxuriant orange plantations, with however most primitive arrangements in the shape of an hotel. We were fortunate in securing the two best guides on the river and a good sailing boat, and at last our luck changed.