Sport: Anglers

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Last year 6,000,000 U. S. residents took out fishing licenses. Probably twice that number went fishing. They spent more than $10,000,000 on tackle alone* (twice the amount they spent in 1933). Major reason for the current spurt is a vogue for deep-sea angling, increasingly popular in the past five years since it has been dramatized in newsreels and publicized by fishermen like Zane Grey, Ernest Hemingway and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Once a shy, retiring sport, deep-sea angling has become one of the most glamorous, gregarious sports in the U. S. Once content to catch a big fish and talk about it forevermore, today a deep-sea angler wants to keep on catching a bigger fish than his neighbor, yearns to break a record —or at least see his picture in the papers alongside the monster he has conquered.

Since many record fish have been landed off the southeast coast of Florida, Miami is headquarters for winter anglers. Last week, with bands blaring and airplanes circling overhead, a mile-long flotilla of fishing boats, five abreast, paraded out of Biscayne Bay. It was the opening of the 99-day Metropolitan Miami Fishing Tournament and 2,000 deep-sea anglers, who for weeks had been dreaming of sailfish dancing on their tails, were off for the Gulf Stream four miles away to try their luck, skill, and endurance.

Open not only to Gulf Stream fishermen but to anyone who catches one of the 30 specified varieties of fish† with rod & reel within the tournament's fixed boundaries—from boat, pier, bridge, bulkhead or breakwater—the Miami tournament, started three years ago, is the largest in the U. S. Last year 102,000 contestants entered their catches. A barefoot boy with a 10¢ rod, a trailer tourist who goes out on a $2-a-day party boat and an elegant sportsman with a $100 rod and a $1,000 reel have each an equal chance to win some of the $15,000 in prize money. The No. 1 prize is the Miami Beach Rod & Reel Club's silver statuette awarded to the angler who lands the biggest sailfish.

At the end of the first week the largest fish registered was an Allison tuna weighing 138½ Ibs., the biggest sailfish a not spectacular 71½ pounder. But fishermen were hopeful. A world-record white marlin (161 Ibs.) was caught off Miami last spring.