About eight A.M. we anglers sailed out of the creek, and stood across the bay with a light southerly breeze.  Our boatman was one of the Minorcan race, of whom there are many on this coast, descendants of the men of Turnbull’s colony of 1767.  He was a cousin of our pilot, by name Pecetti—­a stout, well-built man forty years old, with keen black eyes and curling dark hair and beard, and a great fisherman with line and net.  He lived near the inlet, and had the kind of boat commonly used in these shallow waters—­flat-bottomed, broad in the beam, with centre-board and one mast set well forward.  He had dug a peck or two of the large round clams, and two or three throws of his cast-net as we came through the creek procured a dozen mullet.

We ran into a channel between the eastern shore of the bay and an island, and came to in a deep channel near the shore, which was marshy and covered with a dense growth of mangrove bushes.

“Now,” said Pecetti as he made fast the painter to a projecting limb, “if the sand-flies don’t eat us up, we ought to get some fish here.”

“What kind of fish do you find here?” asked Herbert.

“Mostly sheepshead, some groupers and snappers, trout, bass, and whiting.  For sheepshead you want clam bait—­for the others, mullet is best.  Rig up your rods and I will bait for you.”

I had a bamboo bass-rod, with a large reel:  the captain had a light salmon-rod, with click reel.  Pecetti selected for us some stout Virginia hooks tied on double gut, with four-ounce sinkers, the tide being quite strong here and half flood.

I found the bottom alongside the boat with about twelve feet of line, and left my hooks upon it as directed.  Soon I felt a slight touch, but pulled up nothing but bare hooks.  Twice was I thus robbed by the small fish which swarmed about us, and which get the bait before the larger ones can reach it; but the third time I felt a heavy downward tug, and found myself fast to a strong fish, which fought hard to keep at the bottom, and made short but furious rushes here and there, so that I had to give him line.  In a few minutes he tired himself by his own efforts, and I wound him up toward the surface, but no sooner did he approach daylight than he surged downward again.  Five minutes’ play of this sort exhausted him, and I lifted on board a five-pound sheepshead, the same thick-set, arched-backed fish, with his six dusky bars on a silvery ground, which we buy in Fulton market at half a dollar the pound, and which the wise call Sargus ovis.  In the New York waters it is a scarce fish, but runs larger than on the Southern coast, sometimes up to ten or twelve pounds.  Here they do not average more than four pounds, a seven-pounder being rare.  I agree in opinion with Norris, whose theory is that those found on the coasts of the Middle states are the surplus population of more Southern waters—­perhaps the magnificoes of their tribe, who, like the rich planters in the good old times, like to amuse themselves at Cape May or Long Branch.