Black bass and other fishing in North Carolina

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http://www.archive.org/details/cu3 1924003442641

BLACK BASS

AND OTHER

FISHING IN NORTH CAROLINA

BY
A. V. DOCKERY

Fourteen Years American Consul in Germany,
Portugal and England

RALEIGH
COMMERCIAL PRINTING COMPANY

SH
231
Do4

A279 1003

COPYRIGHT 1909
By
A. V, DOCKERY

PREFACE.

Tuis little book is something more than a
sketch of Black Bass fishing. It embraces nearly
all the different kinds of fish and fishing in
North Carolina.

It is written by one who has been an ardent
fisherman all his life, and at the same time a
modest, yet close student of nature subjects.
Many real lies about nature are often more
plausible, and readily believed, than some truths.

It has not been the writer’s intention to en-
croach upon the domain of the scientist, espec-
ially in the use of technical terms; but only to
give his observations in plain, practical lan-
guage.

This book is not published with the object of
pecuniary gain, so much as for the love of the
gentle sport of fishing; and with pleasure it is
placed before the public.

Tue AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Cuaptrer — I. Fishing Districts .............. 3
CHAPTER II. Fish and Fishing .............. 13
Cuapter III. Black Bass Fishing ........... 24
CuapTerR IV. Midland Black Bass Fishing ... 34
CHAPTER V. Bass Fishing on the Coast ..... 44
CuapterR VI. The Rock Bass: Red Eye ...... 52
CuapTrer VII. The Mountain Trout ........... 60

CuHapter VIII. Worm Fishing for Brook Trout. 70

CHapter IX. Pike: “Jack”: “Red Fin” ...... V7
CHAPTER X. Our Perches) 21.23 425 cad osseous 838
CuHapterR XI. The Catfishes and Suckers ..... 103
CHaptTeR XII. Sea Wishes: «. 23 0cs5ssae gasses ene 117
CuHaprer XIII. Fish Ponds ...............---- 127
Cuapter XIV. Fishing Tackle ................ 141
CHAPTER XY. North Carolina Turtles ........ 150
Cuapter XVI. Bull Frogs and Toad Frogs .... 159

CuaPter XVII. Baits and So Forth ........... 171

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE.
Large MoutH BLack BASS .......---+- +e seers 33
SmMaLut Moura BLack BASS .......-6-+ eer eres 42
Rock Bass: Rep HYE .......6- eee eee eee eee 56
BROOK “PROUT | atauiw dd sete sd sataes sadebne.d eect es 67
GRAPPY: sas geese caw hee ne ee been eastei edgy ey aie ss 90
WEIBR. i WG 2a. 28s Rada t an oasawe EE OoE ss Ale hey ales 98
Rep BEEEY? ROBIN: 4 i.dco rss eseso¥e deere ver ess 94
WARMOUTH : GOGGLE EYE ......... 20sec eee eee 96
WHITE PERCH. secs coiceaingatie cea Se Marea ne oes Melee 92
WAGL-HYED; PIKE scKs5 ihe dcre ee eee G she ek Gon he st
OTHER: PIED ss2a suis ten cava sean coe eee ERs 6
YELLOW OR RACCOON PERCH .......... 00.000 ee eee 101
SUGRER: tetera 38 coarse i dyaseaenw Seen are Drakay egies 115
CAPRISH 36 God Rast aia eo Ree nd ahs AO SES GA wae 8 116

BLACK BASS FISHING

CHAPTER I.

Fisunine Disrricrs.

For the purpose of this book I may divide
the fishing waters of North Carolina into three
sections, which are also more or less the natural
geographical divisions. In other words, the first
section embraces the territory west of the crest
of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the second
section takes in the greater part of the State,
extending down to tidewater, where the third
section begins and goes on to the ocean.

The principal rivers of the first section, which
plowing westward, make their way into the
mighty Mississippi either directly or through
the Ohio river, are the Kanawha and the Ten-
nessec. The former river, known in North Car-
olina as New River, has as its tributaries in
Wautauga, Ashe and Alleghany counties, several
rapid, fine, mountain streams running mostly

4 Fishing in North Carolina.

through deep, ugly, rocky gorges. The upper
waters of the Tennessee within the borders of
North Carolina are known as the Holston and
the Hiawassee; the branches of the Holston be-
ing the trout streams, Watauga and Toe and the
French Broad. The Holston making itself up
out of several rivers, and going into another
river does not hold on to its name for many
miles.

There are many other small streams, all mak-
ing their way westward, but all of the waters of
this section are more or less similar in character,
full or empty, as the rains fall; and their fish
life is also similar. Man should not find fault
with nature, but man may wonder why some of
these streams between the Blue Ridge and the
Alleghany Mountains did not make for the
Atlantic Ocean through the Blue Ridge, instead
of unanimously bulging through the Alleghany
Mountains to help the Mississippi River fill the
Gulf of Mexico. But let that pass.

The fish in these rivers are, perhaps, more
gamy, but they are not nearly so numerous, nor
do they attain such a large size as those east of

Fishing in North Carolina. 5

the Ridge. They are likewise dissimilar as to
species. The most noteworthy fish is the beau-
tiful, speckled trout, but this fish has become
scarce since the advent of railroads in proximity
to its favorable haunts.

In the middle section we have such great
rivers as the Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear and Yadkin.

The latter is big enough and good enough to
be step-father to all the others, and 400 miles
long, having one of its sources in a spring a mile
or so from Blowing Rock, and condescending to
empty its waters through another State.

The Tar, Neuse, and Cape Fear rivers how-
ever, are strictly North Carolina waters, and the
Cape Fear is the longest.

Of course, these rivers have a great many
tributaries, large and small, and in time of flood
they become mighty powerful.

The waters take on color from the character:
of the soil through which they flow. Until they
reach the sand belt, or the Scuppernong terri-
tory, the water is yellowish; but after they strike
sand and juniper or cypress it becomes black;
and, generally speaking, at this line of demar-

6 Fishing in North Carolina.

cation between yellow and black water, not only
the quantity but the variety of fish life is easily
distinguishable. Probably, the proximity to
the ocean has much to do with this fact, but it
is well known that the character of the soil has
a great effect upon the propagation of fishes.
Water will permeate through sand much more
quickly than through clay, and it therefore,
clears sooner and consequently is less destruc-
tive of spawn and young fry. Therefore, fish
are far more plentiful in black than in yellow
waters.

All the waters of this middle section abound
in both game and food-fish, and it is really the
paradise of the genuine sportsman.

The coast section begins at the tide-head, and
this part of the fishy state is recognized, in
quantity and variety, not so much as a sports-
man’s happy land as the home of the fishing
industry. So that, practically, one begins in the
west with hard labor at fishing for sport, goes
through the middle section with genuine love of
fishing and ample recompense, to the coast to
fish for quantity and dollars.

s

Fishing in North Carolina.

North Carolina has a dozen sounds that have
been dignified with names. Albemarle is the
largest body of fresh water, covering more than
400 square miles; while Pamlico Sound has an
area of 1,800 square miles, and the waters of
several other sounds empty into it.

“Black bass and white perch are very abun-
dant in northeastern North Carolina waters.
Currituck Sound, for instance, is filled with
them. Albemarle Sound, the water of which is
normally quite fresh, also has a great number
of these and other fresh water species, as do
also the eight rivers entering the sound, partic-
ularly the Roanoke and Chowan. This sound,
with its tributaries, is an exceedingly important
spawning ground, furnishing our waters with
many of its most valuable species, such as shad,
striped bass, white perch, alewives, etc. Its
shad fisheries (the Capehart Fishery, at Avoca,
particularly) are the largest in the world. So
favorable is this point for the propagation of
fishes that the Government has established, near
Edenton, N. C., a hatchery for stocking the
waters of northeastern North Carolina and
southeastern Virginia.”

8 Fishing in North Carolina.

To give an idea of the abundance of black
bass in the waters of eastern North Carolina, I
noted in the latter part of November or early
December an item in the Bayboro (N. C.)
Sentinel recording the fact that a negro of that
town had gone out one day, and with his hook
and line caught black bass that he sold for more
than $5. I know it to be a fact that in a pond
near Norfolk (known as Smith’s Lake), on the
Norfolk & Southern Railway, are taken bass
varying from half a pound to seven or eight
pounds in weight; and so numerous are the
fishes in the lake that it has been necessary for
the owners to put a limit to the number a fisher-
man is allowed to catch. This limit is twenty-
five.

“Matamuskeet Lake, the largest lake in North
Carolina (fourteen miles long, seven miles
wide), occupying a considerable part of Hyde
County, furnishes splendid sport with rod and
line. The most highly prized fish there caught
is the white perch, which is exceedingly abun-
dant, and reaches a large size; the yellow perch,
also abundant, the blue bream, found in large

Fishing in North Carolina. 9

numbers and ranging next to white perch in
popular estimation, the large-mouth black bass,
which is present in considerable quantities, also
the pike which there attains a very large size,
and the pickerel, as well as other varieties.
Surrounding Lake Matamuskeet are a group of
small lakes, their combined area being less than
one-half that of Lake Matamuskeet. All of them
are stocked with fish similar to the varieties
found in Lake Matamuskeet. The largest of.
this group is Lake Phelps.

In Craven and Jones counties there is an-
other group of lakes (five in number), known
as Great Lake, Long Lake, Lake Ellis, Cat-fish
Lake and Little Lake (the largest of these is
Great Lake, being 5 miles long and 3 miles
wide). In their waters are found great quanti-
ties of largemouth bass, reaching a weight of
seven or eight pounds, also perches, pike, cat-
fishes, etc.”

Ellis Lake is especially noted for the num-
erous and large black bass which it contains.
The lake is very shallow, and the fish usually
has to fight it out running instead of diving
downwards.

10 Fishing in North Carolina.

In the same section there is Scuppernong,
Black, Bartrams and White lakes which afford
fairly good sport. Bass, jack and perch also
are abundant in White Lake, Bladen County,
and Waccamaw, in Columbus. The cat-fish
being privileged passes all boundaries and is
found everywhere, even if he has to make use
of a passing cloud as a common carrier.

In Eastern North Carolina everything is
fishy, men, women and ducks; and sport degen-
erates into slaughter.

The middle section is well dotted with mill
ponds and traversed by fish streams. Within
easy reach of Raleigh by the Raleigh and South-
port Railroad are Myatts, Rays, Stewarts and
Byrds ponds, while the many ponds and fishy
streams of Wake, Johnston, Nash, Wilson and
Wayne counties are easily accessible from vari-
ous railroad points. In fact North Carolina is
the fishtest State in the Union, its climate is
more equable than North, West, or South and
the people as hospitable as anywhere else on
earth.

Probably the most notable fish stream in mid-

Fishing in North Carolina. cla

land North Carolina is Lumber River. It is
a black water river of considerable volume, and
is literally full of bass, bream, flyers and pike.
But it is especially noted for the sport afforded
by the red bream or red breast perch, which are
numerous, strong and free biters, and weigh up
to three pounds. They are not the least offish
about taking the bait, but vigorously hide the
cork, and tenaciously hold on to the bait. Like
the blue bream, these fish will not let go the
bait, and they also prefer angle worms—put on
lob fashion, i. e.: several worms with heads
and tails wriggling. The mouth is small and
tough, and after death the fish somewhat re-
sembles the sheepshead, in color. Lumberton, a
thriving town, situated on the bank of the river,
on the Carolina Central R. R. about 50 miles
from Wilmington, is the best point from which
to fish this river. Besides there is fine pond
fishing anywhere, within 50 miles of the town.
There are no better people anywhere than in
Robeson County.

Fishing with rod and line is free in all the
rivers and creeks, except in the mountain trout

12 Fishing in North Carolina.

district where it has generally been “posted”
or preserved by the owners of adjacent land.
Wherever one goes there is pretty sure to be
some kind of fishing convenient, at all seasons
of the year.

Strictly fresh water fishes are such as live
in lakes and ponds and rivers. These rarely
ever travel far from home. Nearly all the scaly
fresh water fishes possess six fins: two pectoral
fins, one on each side just back of the head, one
and sometimes two dorsal fins on the back, a
ventral and an anal fin on the belly and a caudal
fin or tail. The sharp, bony substances in the
fin are called hard rays, while the others are
called soft rays.

When a fish is deprived of its fins, it floats
with its abdomen upwards. Therefore the fins
act as the motor and steering power.

CHAPTER II.

Fisu anp Fisuina.

Mosr fish are caught by the man who uses the
simplest, and the least quantity of tackle; but
the sportsman does not enjoy the pursuit of
quantity.

I use any rod. I prefer, however, a 10-0z.,
three-piece split bamboo; a limber rod for big
fish and a stiff rod for small fish, because I can
strike home quicker with a stiff rod and can
play the fish better with a limber one.

The water is not open enough to use a reel;
but I want plenty of silk line, run through the
guides and made fast to the reel seat. I do not
like snelled hooks, either on gut or wire, and
prefer a medium-size eyeless Limerick hook,
nicely knitted on the line or on a six-inch piece
of the line; as the quickest catch.

As regards the fishing boat, it should not be
over 12 feet in length, with a seat in the stern
for running and another seat forward within
two feet of the bow to be used when looking for

14 Fishing in North Carolina.

bass. This position is best for the fisherman
where with rod in one hand and a small short
paddle in the other he can easily manage boat
and rod. It does not matter what material the
boat is made of, so that it is light, tight and
shaped for easy handling. I do not care for a
bait box arranged as a part of the boat. It is
well enough in theory, but in practice one will
lose more minnows in it than in any other con-
trivance; the wood becomes soggy, the water
stale and odorous; and coming into the box
through holes in the bottom is better than deep
water. In short the minnows go through a sort
of steaming process.

The paddle should be made of light, tough
wood like ash, and fashioned so that it can be
easily used with one hand; the tip and sides of
the blade may be covered with rubber, neatly
cemented on, in order to avoid accidental noise
as much as possible.

For the same reason the painter should be of
rope, no chain or other metal being allowed in
the boat.

The best kind of patent tin or other metal

Fishing in North Carolina. 15

minnow bucket is a poor equipment; unless cov-
ered with some material that will deaden the
sound. The tin bucket will make a noise every
time you look at it, and you are always hitting
it when it is not in sight. Furthermore the tin
seems to call down the rays of the sun with
extraordinary power, necessitating frequent
change of water. The strainer is all right,
when in the water, if allowed to sink deep into
a cool stratum; but it is noisy and the air com-
partment is worthless, keeping it in warm water
at the surface.

I prefer a thick gourd, holding two or three
gallons with a crooked neck, and grown so that
the bottom is flat, and it will sit up straight.
Cut a hole big enough to put a hand through
near the handle, and fashion a piece of perfo-
rated cork to fit this hole tightly, and you have
a bait holder that will make little noise if kicked
about, does not become heated and with string
ean be let down for a supply of heavy fresh
water—the life of the minnow. The more
soggy the gourd becomes, the tougher and cooler
it is; the minnows do not sicken, and you have
an ideal bait bucket.

16 Fishing in North Carolina.

To carry minnows to the pond I use an un-
glazed earthen jug—size according to quantity
of minnows—with large mouth in which a cork
is tightly fitted.

It is no paradox, nor a fish story, that bait
will live in the same water in such a jug 24
hours without loss.

I have placed three small minnows in a half
gallon bottle filled with water, and hermetically
sealed it—they kept alive and lively for 38
hours. But I prefer the unglazed, porous jug,
whence the lighter gas can escape.

I have, however, in my mind a minnow
bucket which I think will beat anything I have
seen, or “hearn tell of,” but it shali stay in my
mind until it is patented.

A landing net is desirable, but a gaff is never
necessary for our size fish, and is noisy.

There are many other things which are un-
necessary appendages; yet the best appendix to
a true fisherman is a conscience, a pint flask
and cup, and a pipe and tobacco.

All I have said above is intended to be educa-
tional stuff. Somebody is said to have enun-

Fishing in North Carolina. 17

ciated the theory that practice makes perfect.
It does nothing of the kind. <A dullard never
can be even a perfect ass. But one can always
learn something in fishing.

Of baits again: There are just as many
conditions in the gastronomic qualities of a
bass’s stomach as in that of man, and you need
not expect an explanation. A Carolinian will
have zest for corn juice, a Georgia cracker for
clay; a bass dwelling in sluggish, dirty creeks,
overlapped with flags, will prefer a small perch
to a lively branch minnow.

De gustibus non est disputandum, which all
fishermen understand.

The deer tail bob is a bait that is frequently
extolled as a sure killer by fishermen in Eartern
Carolina where bass have nothing to do but
grow big and get caught by corn whiskey ex-
perts.

My friend in Bertie County, all round big
head and big foot sportsman, owner of deer
hounds and a vocabulary, speaking of the-deer
tail bait says that while fishing one early morn-

2

18 Fishing in North Carolina.

ing from a boat near the bank, his best hound,
followed a deer near by, saw the bait on the
water, plunged in and got it. The gentleman
is a man of veracity, and the dogs as well as the
men in that section are liable to curious ex-
periences.

The only automatic combination fisherman
and bait that I know of is a gourd about the
size of a self-made man’s head; with a nicely
crooked handle. I had three of these and would
take them out into the pond, tie a two foot line
to the handle, put hook and minnow on the
other end. Turn them loose to be wafted by
wind or water until arrested by some fish.
They have caught lots of jack for me and some
bass. I do not lose sight of the gourds but go
on with legitimate fishing. Sometimes I look
for the blockaders and one is not in sight. Pres-
ently the gourd pops up and prances about too
much for a minnow. It continues to be viol-
ently disturbed. JI give chase with the boat.
I get up to it and reach for it but down it goes
didapper-like and I wait for its re-appearance.
After many attempts I catch it and take the
gourd’s fish.

Fishing in North Carolina. 19

Zz

It is frolicsome, it is tiresome catching the
gourd ; it is unsportsmanlike taking treble knots
on a fish, and I do not recommend it, even to
a lazy person.

The best fishing watcr is usually located
where there is the least and poorest accommoda-
tion—where there are plenty of fleas and bed-
bugs, but no beds. The bug does not bother me
by biting nor does the Hea want my blood; but
the latter gets so numerous and playful on ocea-
sions as to spoil a fisherman’s temper, which is
a pity.

In Portugal where I fished and incidentally
represented the United States Government as
Consul for three years, the mountain or
speckled trout fishing was fine. There I also
got most intimate with fleas. The best fish
brooks were up in the Sierra Mountains, and the
village inns were at the bottom of the moun-
tains. These inns are two-story stone buildings,
the bottom being used as stables on the compre-
hensive idea that the ammonia generated there
penetrating to the upper floor inhabited by fleas
day and night is good for health. The fleas are

20 Fishing in North Carolina.

surely not lethargic nor need a suspicion of
race suicide be aroused. The only way I could
call them down was to use my gum overcoat as
a sleeping apparatus. I would keep my fishing
socks on, slip my legs into the sleeves, button
up tight, put a pillow slip over my head and
gently lay down on the floor. The fleas only
found my ruse next morning; then, I changed
quarters. But this is a small matter with which
the patient fisherman has to contend; and he
will usually be contented with what he brings
to the fishing ground, with earth for a bed, and
luck for the stomach’s sake.

Bass bite every hour or two and then stop.

Many anglers hook the minnow through the
lips and undoubtedly such a method prolongs
the life of the minnow, but I prefer to hook it
under the dorsal fin, as I believe it can thereby
make prettier play. However this is merely a
matter of individual taste. The “tail hook” is
certainly cruel and tiring.

If the bass seizes crosswise or by the tail he
will invariably turn it and pouch it head first;
and for this reason I prefer to give him a
chance to seize it by the head.

Fishing in North Carolina. 21

The hook should be struck in the opposite
direction to the course the fish is running if
possible, or upwards, if the fish dips down-
wards.

The modern idea of fishing is to use light
rods and light lines with small hooks, sizes 1
and 2. These are strong enough and do not
kill the minnow. Limerick or Sproat hooks
are the best and these should be either black or
japanned. The blue and bright hooks are in-
ferior.

Size H braided silk line is preferable, on
either an 8 or 10 ounce rod. The “Kingfisher”
brand are the best lines manufactured.

As to outfit for fishing the simplest is the
best. A pair of easy old shoes, with holes cut
in the uppers to let the water out is better than
hip rubber boots, and safer. If however one
must have a pair of rubber boots those made by
the Hannaford Ventilated Boot Co., 79 Milk
St., Boston, are recommended.

A handsome “get up” is no more useful in
fishing than in hunting. The man and the rod
as well as the man and the gun, not the clothes,
bring the quarry to bag.

au Fishing in North Carolina.

I prefer a medium size bass hook, but the
point of the hook should always have 1-4 inch
free play from the bait; otherwise it is next to
impossible to hook a bass.

If a limber rod is used keep the tip up, and
give the fish the bait; as such a rod will auto-
matically take up slack. A loose line at any
stage means instant danger.

Tf a stiff rod is used, tip to the water, keep
it there until your fish has played out.

See-saw your fish when you must, but never
when there are no obstructions; and keep him
away from the boat until you are ready for him
with landing net. Do not wait, with landing
net, until the fish is brought to the top of the
water, but take him as deep as possible.

A flop at the surface has saved the life of
many a hooked fish.

Always fish towards bank or reeds, if possible.

Keep your temper in good order, unless the
bottle gets broken. :

Remember, too, that if the human stomach is
composed of asbestos, jiggers, sandstone, acid,
cayenne, glue, zinglass, hook worms, alcohol,

Fishing in North Carolina. 23

collards and rubber; a fish may be expected to

take any reasonable lure that is properly placed
within his reach.

CHAPTER III.

Buaox Bass Fisure.

Tur black bass is widely distributed through-
out eastern and middle North Carolina, in the
ponds, lakes and rivers. It is locally known as
“chub.” The large mouth variety is the most
abundant, the small mouth heing derived from
imported stock.

Henshall, a great fisherman, made the pre-
diction twenty years ago that the black bass
would eventually become the leading game fish
of America. I am sure that it is already true
with regard to North Carolina and the neigh-
boring states. It is today our king game fish,
our classic in angling language.

Henshall further says: “As to comparison of
game qualities, all things being equal and where
they inhabit the same waters, there is no differ-
ence in game qualities between the large and
small mouth bass; one may be more active in
its movements while the other is more powerful.
Nor is there much difference in habits. As a

Fishing in North Carolina. 25

general rule the small mouth have small scales
and the large mouth have large scales.”

The small mouth variety more commonly
affects running water with its presence, while
the large mouth prefers still, deep water.

In winter, like most other fishes, the bass
seeks deep water and lies near the bottom in a
partial state of torpidity. In the hottest sum-
mer days he also prefers the gloom and solitude
of deep holes, under logs or under banks where
the water is cooler. Therefore one will infer
that the season for catching the bass is some-
what limited, to the early spring before spawn-
ing time and in the autumn. The writer be-
lieves September and October are the best
months for this kind of fishing.

Bass run up to as much as ten pounds weight
in this territory, growing larger in states
further South; but they are seldom taken with -
hook and line weighing more than five pounds.
Even if the tackle holds securely, there are
usually so many snags, and this is where the fish
generally lie in pairs, that it is almost impos-
ible to get a big fish out after being hooked.

26 Fishing in North Carolina.

If one is eanght the mate will also be taken, and
the place will shortly be occupied by another
pair.

The bass is not only choice as to his domicile,
but I am sure it is absolutely master of the
home. I once caught one in a seine which had
swallowed a one pound jack except a little of
the tai]. .\fter removing the jack a perch was
found in it, and to my astonishment a half
digested minnow was inside the perch. Thus
I had captured four different species tele-
scoped as it were. It may seem incredible, yet
is very natural when onc considers the voracity
of bass, jack and perch. The bass had evidently
not taken the jack for food purposes, because
its stomach was full, but got mad at the en-
croachment, opened its mouth and rushed out-
side the jack. “Butting” is its way of fighting.

The bass is a fighter for life, for food, for
home and for fun. It is not the least bit scared
of other fish, but develops pugnacity chiefly at
the instance of appetite or in the defense of
home and progeny. One would imagine that
the sharp-tooth jack of equal weight could whip

Fishing in North Carolina. 27

a bass, but it is otherwise and the jack appears
to be aware of it because the jack vacates its
domicile alongside a log or lily patch whenever
a bass wants to take charge of the place.

We often see a mill pond stocked with bass,
jack, perch, mullet, and shiners, and imagine
that they dwell together in peace. There is no
peace there. All are hungry, and each in its
turn is as predatory as a Rockefeller or a Mor-
gan. Nature has so favored their necessities
that the spawning season of the different species
occurs at different seasons, in order that the egg
product may partially supply the constant de-
mand of the appetite. After the hatch of possi-
bly one one-hundredth part of the eggs spawned,
comes into horse-play that everlasting pursuit
of the young and feeble.

The jack or pike spawns in February when
eggs are in great demand, and all the other
species are rampant customers. A little later
the mullet does its stunt in the same line of busi-
ness—furnishing food for the inhabitants of
water and land. The bass establishes its planta-
tion in shallow water on the ground or on a flat

28 Fishing in North Carolina.

top stump or log under water in the month of
May. A little later the perch acts its part near
the shore, and so on around the cycle.

The nest is guarded against intrusion by one
of the owners, but it avails little, for while
our bass has savagely sallied forth in pursuit
of a would be burglar other fishes slip in and
get a mess of food—eggs or fry. After the
young have got a start in life, which is very
early, it is a ease of devil take the hindmost,
and, human-like, the strong overcome the weak.

A female bass will deposit about 15,000 eggs,
which hatch in two weeks, the young fry grow
very fast, reaching 10 inches at 2 years; and
maturing at 3 years old. Afterwards they grow
at the rate of a pound a year until the maximum
weight is attained. A ten pound fish ought to
be 26 inches long, with a girth of 19 inches.

The bass spawns, “beds,” earlier in mill
ponds than in rivers, because, perhaps, the
water being stationary it takes in a store of the
sun’s heat sooner than running streams. Bass
are more plentiful in near-the-sea ponds where
the water is not so fresh, but they are not so

Fishing in North Carolina. 29

game as in the mill ponds in the interior; and
not so full of fight even there as in the midland
streams.

All fish may not be cannibals, but the bass
certainly is one, for it will take a small one of
its own species as readily as if it was ignorant.

Fish are more weather-wise than men. They
know 12 hours ahead of the weather man when
there will be rain or east wind, and on the pros-
pect of vain washing into the water a plentiful
supply of fresh victuals they keep “fast”
against the baited hook.

They do not possess such an acute sense of
hearing as of sight and feeling, or touch. They
will not bite during a thunder storm, not be-
cause of the noise but on account of feeling the
jar in the water more sensitively. ~ Silence, how-
ever, is always desirable and often necessary in
bass fishing. Unlike the pike which is inquisi-
tive about noise or the composition of any mov-
ing attraction, the bass is wary beyond reason
and methodical in this distemper. Curiosity
plays no part in his modus vivendi. Strictly
game fish look upward for “grub,” and that

30 Fishing wn North Carolina.

is about the only function in fish life; while
other kinds look down, smell of, feel of, and
feed near the ground.

The condition of the water has much to do
with snecess in bass fishing; whether it is in
flood or ebb, too fresh or too hot—it cannot be
too cold in the season—too muddy for the fish
to see the bait or so clear the angler can be
easily seen. In short a dry season and low
water makes fish hungry.

As to bait, a bass will take almost any living
thing when in the mood, and yet it is often so
fanciful that it will take nothing when it really
ought to be hungry.

The moon and the weather may have more
or less to do with the feeding time, but I never
recognized the authority of the moon; prefer-
ring to believe that the condition of the stomach
of the fish regulated his relish for food.

Aristophanes called the bass the wisest of
fishes, and said that its only weakness was its
stomach. Man is not very dissimilar in this
respect.

Al Fairbrother, an authority in ‘‘Every-

Fishing in North Carolina. 31

thing,” says “the hungry man who puts in all
his time fishing, and never stops to fry a pan
full of ’em is certainly voted a fool,” wherein
Al shows that he is no judge of a true fisherman.

One must be born a bass fisherman, he can-
not be taught the art by another person, but
must acquire it by patient practical experience.
Nor can he succeed, however expert he may be-
come, unless he learns the water thoroughly ;
that is the location of every log, stump, hollow
bank or lilly patch where bass feel at home, and
the depth of the water. The same vexatious
experience will be required to know when to
strike and how to strike, how to guide your fish
away from obstructions, how to keep it under
water, when to turn it, and when it has sur-
rendered.

Give the fish a second wind as some sports-
men do for the fun, and it will cut up more
devilment than before and very likely not come
into the creel.

No bait is so natural nor so attractive as the
lively round minnow from a rocky branch.
Crawfish, frogs, lizzards, and beetles are not
unwelcome food, but they are less attractive to

,

32 Fishing in North Carolina.

the eye and too tiresome for the stomach to
handle. When the bass is in the “bed” spawn-
ing, the fisherman for meat often takes it with
a lizzard, but the bass, in defending the nest,
swallows the lizzard as the queckest and safest
plan, not for his stomach’s sake.

The various artificial baits, spinning and bob-
bing and skittering are good enough makeshift:
to use in educated waters but the North Caro-
lina bass has not become accustomed to their
use, and take little notice of such objects.
However, these fish may be “onto” the decep-
tion. A great lob of wriggling angle worms
is a killing bait for all big mouth fishes.

The fisherman has a great many tribulations
and if he loses his temper it makes about the
same difference as in any other pursuit. After
he has got the water, the wind, the bait, and
the symptoms in his favor, he may get the fish
into the basket. The sportsman is satisfied
anyhow.

The true science, piscatorial, is occupation
without ostentation, fun without fury, patience
without glory; a desire for nothing better nor
fear of anything worse---an existence in vacuum.

Poshing in Norih Carolina.

33

‘ssDg youg ynop eb.vT

CILAPTER IV.

Mipianp Brack Bass Fisyine.

“Incu for inch and pound for pound the bass
is the gamest fish that swims.—(Henshall.)

There are now very few good bass ponds
within fifty miles of Raleigh. Some of the
best have been allowed to go down with the
breaking of dams, while other good ponds have
been fished dry without any effort being made to
restock them. The owners of all ponds have
generally acted generously toward fishermen,
and the kindness has never been wilfully abused
by any true disciple of Walton. Yet their
patience has often been overtaxed by the wan-
ton kind of people.

Until two years ago, Hunnicut’s pond, in Har-
nett County, about 25 miles from Raleigh, was
full of bass, jack and perch; but the water had
to be turned out to fix the dam, and it is not
yet ripe for fishing. It is situated on Black
River, which rises near Angier and empties
into the Cape Fear River. This is the only

Fishing in North Carolina. 35

pond, with a dam in good order, that interferes
with the water in its course to the sea; and game
blue bream up to a pound in weight are plenti-
ful, in June, at the mill tail, only a few getting
up into the pond. This is the fishiest stream
in middle North Carolina.

J had trouble with a seven-pound bass in this
pond several years ago. I struck him in the
midst of a bunch of logs about twenty feet from
the bank, where the water was seven feet deep.
It was an ideal place; the logs two or more
feet under water, and the fish—that fish—al-
ways there and customarily hungry, so that I
had no difficulty in enticing him to take a
medium sized minnow.

My heart was glad. J had no animosity
against game fish. I would rather one would
whip me, than eat him. I buy—do not sell—I
fish for sport. This time I got my fish hard
hooked, but could not clear the logs and he soon
succeeded in wrapping himself around a pro-
jecting branch deep in water, and got so fast
to it that I could not budge him nor would he
take up the slack line. In a little while he be-

36 Fishing in North Carolina.

gan to cut up again, and the line parted, hav-
ing been see-sawed off, a foot below the cork. I
knew it was no use trying any more that day.
A week afterwards I found him again with
nearly the same result, but I worked differently.
As soon as he had hung under, and the line was
taut and fast, I got out of the boat and went
down to the catch, but he had torn off and the
hook was hitched to the log. Several days after-
wards I hit him again. This time I got him
safely over and clear of logs, and while my boy
paddled into the open, I felt so sure I had my
fish that I neglected to put the tip of the rod to
the water, and while playing him the third time
around the boat he fairly rose out of the water,
and shook my hook out of his mouth much after
the way a mean mule would discharge a bit. I
was heart broken, did some muttering for a few
minutes; and went home. To this day I can
see the defiant countenance of that fish, in the
air, jerking his head from side to side.

For weeks I pursued him, but never struck
him—he either took the minnow off or threw
it out. A lady caught him, the fish having

Fishing in North Carolina. 37

swallowed the bait and got hooked in the maw.
Even then the line broke, and the fish dropped
into the boat. He weighed 7 1-4 pounds, and
this is why I know he was a seven-pounder.

I always feared and watched a two-pounder,
which size I regard as the most apt jumpers,
and this is the crucial point with a bass on the
hook; and about the only time an expert angler
may lose the fish. Big fish are more apt to stay
in the water or sulk.

Hook and line fishing has always been free
at Hunnicut’s, and the owners are very clever
people; but they naturally expect fairly decent
behavior around the premises.

Starting near the source of Black River is
Black Creek another good fish stream which
courses to the sea hy way of Neuse River. On
this creek is Panther Branch Fishing Club’s
pond, alias Myatt’s pond, eighteen miles from
Raleigh, and everybody can fish in it who is a
member of the club. This is today the best
stocked pond within 50 miles of Raleigh. It
has been carefully re-stocked with several
species of fish, and protected as it should be.

38 Fishing in North Carolina.

I have fished this pond several times, and have
had both kinds of luck.~ I caught three bream
below the dam one day, but never got one in the
pond; and I do not think they patronize this
tributary of the Neuse to any extent.

I do not know how Taylor’s pond, over in
Nash, is now, but I spent a week there some
years ago and the fishing was not good. It is
on Moccasin Creek, a good fishing stream by
reputation.

Richardson-Heely-Strickland pond, on Buff-
alo, over in Johnston, twenty miles from Ral-
eigh, is a long, narrow, deep pond, full of fish;
but the bass are so wise as to be hard to come at.

There are plenty of them and very big ones
but they are too particular about the method
‘of feeding. I know I never caught one there,
and I have heard other fihsermen admit the
same thing. Yct I have had rare luck with
speckled perch, large hard biters, not white
perch; and the “red belly” perch fishing there
is fine in June and July. I did not meet any
jack nor red fins at this place. The fishing is
free, and. good boats can be hired by the day

Fishing in North Carolina. 39

for the moderate sum of 25 cents. In fact this
is the only free water fishing of any value that
I know of within fifty miles of my starting
point.

Penny’s or Yates’ pond, five miles out, has
some very big university educated bass which
are apt to stay there ; but the fishing is otherwise
not good. Gourd-seed perch and shad roaches
or shiners are plentiful. The pond has been
really fished to death and restocking has been
sedulously avoided.

As I intimated, other good ponds have been
permitted to go uncared for, or else depleted
through the vandalism of nonsportmen. It is a
hard matter to own a mill pond where the
people in the vicinity feel they have a right to
catch a living out of it.

I have never cared much for river fishing, and
less for creek fishing. First of all I want the
water to stay still, while I may not expect the
fish to do so, and I am “afeard” of snakes on
land but not on water, unless I take pe-ru-na.

There ought to be good fishing at Milburnie
pond, on Neuse River. There was good fishing

40 Fishing in North Carolina.

until the power company effectually blocked the
fish away by a new dam across the river. But,
at best, the fishing is uncertain. With a clear
sky and clean water, the flood and mud may
come down on one in a few hours from fifty
miles up stream.

As practically all the fish put into .Neuse
River by the United States Fish Commission
are quarantined below the dam at Milburnie,
few get up into the pond, except in time of big
flood.

The red stuff dumped in Walnut Creek may
not kill people, but it drives fish out of the
creek, and that nearby creek is spoiled for fish-
ing purposes. Crabtree, another handy stream,
in somebody else’s boyhood days is said to have
been partly full of fish, but I fear it is too fre-
quently assaulted with dynamite.

As a rule, black waters hold more fish than
those which spring from red clay soils. It is
not difficult to account for the difference. Black
mud is more easily disintegrated, and the water,
therefore, clears more quickly; while red mud
sticks to ceg and young fry.

Fishing in North Carolina. 41

Fish have many enemies besides man and
their own species, and while there is no suicidal
mania, yet there is an enormously developed
race issue which is impelled by the instinct: of
the stomach and guided by the power of mouth,
fin, and tail.

The turtle is a very bad neighbor. His
mouth is big, his eyes are open and his stomach
is capacious. A fish loves to be rubbed better
than a fat man in a Turkish bath, probably be-
cause he wishes to get rid of some of the yellow
fever germs left on him by a mosquito or a Ger-
man scientist. Scratching tickles him to a stand-
still, The turtle locates him under a log and
wants to share his society. He takes cognizance
of the latitude and longitude, shuts his eyes,
moves and allows himself to feel like a log along-
side of the fish, until his muzzle gets into posi-
tion; when one snap fixes the destiny of the
fish until it thunders.

The terrapin only attacks the sick or the
netted fish—his head being no battleship.

The otter and the mink are both gross feeders
and great fishers. Their eyes are built for

42

Fishing in North Carolina.

Small Mouthed Black Bass.

Fishing in North Carolina. 43

under water service, and, taking in a supply
of air, they can stay under water a long time
and do much slaughter.

All water snakes are expert fishers, but they
run great risks, and occasionally make the mis-
take of trying to swallow a fish tail first, and
sometimes find themselves up against a sleeping
turtle who had just as soon compliment his
stomach with snake as fish.

Like man; from the air, the water and the
earth, fish attract enemies.

CHAPTER V.

Bass Fisuine on trae Coast.

Havine spent last Sunday fishing, through
the News and Observer, for the dark spotted
trout, in the brooks between the Blue Ridge and
Alleghany mountains of North Carolina, I pro-
pose to jump clear of the middle section of the
State, and get back to my favorite game fish,
the black bass, (chub) in his favorite haunts,
along the fringe of waters of the coast line, at
the tidal limit.

The fresh water lakes, ponds, and creeks of
this section abound in bass of the largest size.
In fact all the waters down east are so full of
fish that it becomes a matter of slaughter, and
therefore toil of brain as well as muscle in
catching them. What sort of sport is that which
fills a boat with fish in a few hours?

Besides, the fish in those waters are not so
full of fight as those in Middle Carolina. I
know I would rather catch one bass up State,
that has never got a whiff of salt water air than

Fishing in North Carolina. 45

a boat load of Chowan River sluggards, hungry
enough to be sure, to grab at any reasonable
bait, but too lazy to do much else than sulk—
doglike—will snarl] over a bone but will not play
tag with it.

In the vicinity of Wilmington there is some
fairly good big bass fishing. Take a boat at
Wilmington, go up North East River with the
tide to the mouth of Prince George Creek; and
fish it up to Castle Hayne, which is as far as a
boat can pass. This is an ideal still-fishing
creek and reminds one of the gloomy everglades
of Robeson and Bladen counties. The water is
jet black, deep nearly everywhere, and the banks
are bordered far out into the water with a
thick mass of long evergreen weeds— which
sometimes are uprooted by strong wind and un-
usual tides and thereafter form floating islands,
waited for years up and down the creek by wind
and tide. A boat cannot make headway over
these floating islands, but must go around or
push them aside. An immense cypress swamp
borders the Castle Hayne side of the creek, ex-
tending to the North East River, probably two

46 Fishing in North Carolina.

miles wide. In this swamp the alligator fear-
lessly makes his home the year round; there are
probably one hundred and sixty thousand squir-
rels, and such a large colony of raccoons that
the farmers along the edge have to kill them
with strychnine to protect the corn.

There are some deer, which were formerly
hunted until it was found that alligators were
as fond of dog meat as of hog meat. The alliga-
tors are as harmless to man, as the bear, which
also dwell there; and will avoid man’s acquain-
tance if given an opportunity. One day while
fishing in the creek in company with two other
persons, I saw one coming out of the weedy
morass with his mouth ajar; and just as he
made clear water I emptied a load of squirrel
shot into his head. To my surprise he emptied
a big water rattler out of his mouth, and was
dead, and about to sink; but we got him into
the boat and laid him out, friendly like, on his
back in the bottom. In about ten minutes, after
we had quietly settled down to fishing, he waked
up, waked us up too, and wanted to get out.
We could not let him, however, much as we

Fishing in North Carolina. 47

wanted to doso. I jumped upon the bow thwart
and with rod turned him to the middle thwart
man, who hit him with a gun and passed him to
the man who had taken his station already high
up on the stern seat and he returned the ’gator
with a vicious blow of his paddle. Thus we had
it for a few very long minutes, until the var-
mint concluded to die again. There was no
time to think about shooting—the butt of the
gun was more handy. Had the boat sunk we
would very shortly have been in Jerusalem, be-
cause the best swimmer could not have made
headway through the morass of weeds which for
hundreds of yards lined both banks of the
stream. We carried that alligator home all
right, but we never gave him up for dead; and
considered ourselves somewhat of heroes, since
had the battle gone against us, three lives would
have been lost, equal to an average Spanish-
American war battle in casualty, although less
costly.

I did not sufficiently enjoy that fishing trip
to repeat it.

But the bass fishing in Morton’s pond is prob-

48 Fishing in North Carolina.

ably the finest in this State. It is situated at
the head of tide-water on a small creek, eight
miles from Havelock, a station on the Atlantic
and North Carolina Railroad, whence convey-
ance may be obtained at reasonable rates. The
Wayside Inn managed by the owner of the pond
affords neat lodging and substantial grub at
very reasonable rates. No charge is made for
fishing, nor for boats, although the supply of
the latter is inadequate.

The pond covers an area of 300 acres, and
probably half of this is occupied by cypress
trees; afford shade, refuge, and feeding ground
for the fish. These trees surround the pond,
extending 50 yards or more into the water
which is from 3 to 6 feet deep—gradually
deepening to as much as 40 feet in the middle
of the pond.

Bass are plentiful and run to a very large
size; all kinds of perch, including the long,
barred; raccoon perch, are likewise plentiful
but the speckled perch is most frequently met
with.

There are also some jack, but nobody thinks

Fishing in North Carolina. 49

of fooling with a fool jack where bass are so
plentiful.

The only drawback to the fishing is perhaps
bait, but this equally applies to all coast line
fishing. One has therefore to fall back on small
perch for bait, which are easily obtained at the
pond, and these bass will readily take the perch
and make the best of conditions.

Three Raleigh friends of mine went to this
pond recently for an outing, with only a gallon
and a half, from this prohibition town, which
they made do them for two days. In those
two days they caught 39 bass, besides a job lot
of perches that their conscience would not per-
mit to be estimated.

While under ordinary circumstances I might
doubt some of the remarks of these men, yet I
am constrained to believe that they told the
truth about catching 39 chub. I wish, however,
that they had made it even 40.

Eleven of the bass weighed from 5 1-2 to
7 8-4 pounds, bully big fish; and the others from
3 to 5 pounds each. They were caught with

4

50 Fishing in North Carolina.

ordinary stiff rods 15 feet long, and about the
same length of line. The fish being chiefly
found near the trees there was no room for reel
and line play; nor was any trolling done.

One big chub while being slowly towed along-
side the boat, with plenty of slack line, made a
sudden dash, secured a good size perch which
was inquisitive; and brought him to the boat.
This is easily believable. A fool jack would
venture to jump into the boat after bait.

The head of the 7 3-4 pound chub, caught
by this bunch of galoots was exhibited in John-
son’s drug store; and bore every evidence of
bigness. But the biggest fish, a 13 pounder,
caught by the most pious looking cuss in the
gang, got away; yet it has been much talked
about. It seems that in one of his mad sorties
for liberty, apart from equality and fraternity,
he butted against a cypress butt, grunted, and
tore himself from the hook.

I am glad Nanny lost that fish, because it
saves him so much veracity for another time.

In order to protect one’s veracity, it is well
to remember that a fish is never as large as it

fishing in North Carolina. 51

looks to be, and in the water it is certainly
twice as large as on land. Everybody will re-
member that the biggest fish always gets away.

In some localities and generally in South
Carolina the bass is commonly called trout.

A friend has sent me a sketch of a bass caught
in Moore Pond, Franklin County, which it is
claimed weighed 8 1-2 pounds. This fish was
22 1-2 inches long with a depth of 7 1-4 inches.
This pond has long been celebrated for its big
bass, and it has not been overfished.

CHAPTER VI.

Tux Rocx Bass: Rep Eyr.

Tre red eye, or rock bass, is the gamest fish
I have ever taken in North Carolina. I really
am not sure what is the proper name for it. It
is commonly known here as the red eye, but if
the eye of any other fish looks red the angler
is sure he has caught a red eye. However, I
believe it is the genuine rock bass described in
the U. S. Directory, 1907, as rock bass, or red
eye. It is very scarce in our waters. I have
never caught more than three of them, which I
took while fishing with minnow for bass, at Mil-
burnie, in 1893. I was wading among the falls
when I struck something that I took to be a bass,
and it gave me an unusually long, strong fight.
I brought it to my surcingle, unhitched and took
him to the bank, where my friend, John Pugh
Haywood, an ex-member of Worth’s fish hatch-
ery, was piddling with catfish. I said nothing
about the fish, nor noted any peculiarity, but
baited quickly and again waded to my hole in

Fishing in North Carolina. 53

the water, where it was mixed with rocks, for
another bass. One bit my minnow the instant
it touched the water, and for a time struggled
bravely, but I was master. Carrying it to the
bank, I looked around for the other fish—a bass
as I supposed—but could not find it. A fish
was there, to be sure, but it had completely
changed color from the sheeny green of life to
the bars of a sheepshead in death. Haywood
then told me it was a red eye, the gamest fish
in the river. I had never heard of such a thing
as a red eye except when it was sorely inflamed.

And yet this was my whilom bass. I baited
and started out again. Looking back I saw
Haywood with shoes and breeches off, rod and
ammunition in hand, following hot and hasty.
He had become excited. I got another fish at
the same place, and that took in the school.
There was no more play. Two of them weighed
a little over two pounds a piece and the other
was smaller. I was proud of my catch.

Then I went to work to study the liars (au-
thorities) on fish lore to learn something useful
about the red eye of the fish tribe. I am yet a

54 Fishing in North Carolina.

student. St. Peter, who was a net fisherman,
does not epistle on the red eye, and Isaac Wal-
ton was only a ground-bait fisherman.

“The Fishes of North Carolina” gives a cor-
rect personal description of my fish except that
it does not mention the color transformation
after death and confines its habitat to the
French Broad River and tributaries; but it says
that a specimen in the Museum caught near
Raleigh in 1892, was probably an introduced
example. I sincerely hope other and numerous
examples will be introduced, because I have
never found another one of these fish.

It is not only a free biter and vigorous
fighter, but the flesh is white, firm and of ex-
cellent flavor. I do not believe, however, with
the authority aforesaid, that it is a desirable
fish for ponds, because wherever found in the
river, it is located among rocks in the swiftest
water—a rock bass.

We see nothing of this fish up country, ex-
cept in spring, when it appears in very small
schools about the time dogwood trecs are in
blossom ; therefore, fresh water rock bass or not,

Fishing in North Carolina. 55

I feel safe in asserting that it is at least migra-
tory in its habits. It has been found in the
Roanoke, Tar, Neuse and Cape Fear, and the
tributaries of these rivers.

Thanks to the public spirit and energetic
action of the Audubon Society, we have in
North Carolina quite a comprehensive and effi-
cient system of game protection; but our mid-
land fish interest has been almost entirely neg-
lected. Fish may be taken in and out of season,
and in any quantity, without violating any
statute law. The only measurable protection
is the prohibition of seining a few streams in
certain localities and also in the use of certain
kinds of nets in some of the tide water counties.

Ponds and lakes for the most part being pri-
vate property, the fishing rights thereto are of
course at the will of the owner. Fish are not
sufficiently plentiful to encourage a person to
become a hog fisherman, however much the in-
elination may be that way.

Undoubtedly there should be a little more
education of the general public on the impor-
tance of the preservation of our fishes and it is

56

Fishing in North Carolina.

ack Bass.

Lt
fy

}

Fishing in North Carolina. 57

earnestly hoped that the next Legislature will
enact a law that will at least make such close
seasons as will protect all game fish as well as
strictly food fishes from destruction during the
spawning period. No owner of private water
can reasonably object, since it is to his advant-
age as well as to the people generally. Such a
law would be more easily enforced than a game
law, because the temptation to violate it is less.

A fisherman ought certainly to be able to
swim. It is not only a desirable, but almost a
necessary accomplishment. It is more easily
learned than dancing, and it does not require
the aid of a fiddler, nor is grace such an impor-
tant part. It is also nice to be able to float,
whereby one rests himself after swimming. It
is not so easy to learn as swimming and neces-
sitates the possession of a lung capacity equal to
that of a bull frog. I can float for hours with-
out exertion. I do not know how I learned the
art.

Passing a mill pond one Sunday down in
Harnett County along the dirt dam which was
used as a public road, I saw half a dozen young

58 Fishing in North Carolina.

fellows summersaulting from a spring-board
and swimming. They invited me to join them,
and without much ado, without even removing
hat and shoes, I tumbled off the spring-board
and swam amongst them for awhile. Then turn-
ing on my back, crossing my arms over my chest
and closing my eyes, I floated for awhile. I
could not hear anything because my ears were
under water. When I opened my eyes I saw all
those fellow a hundred yards down the road
with their clothes in their arms running as if
for life. They told me afterwards that they
thought I was a corpse.

The red eye is more chunky than the black
bass, and probably on that account it cannot
make such a prolonged fight. It has 11 dorsal
spines and 6 or 7 anal spines whereas the bass
has 7 of the former and only two small anal
spines.

Noah Webster says the red eye is a genus of
the carp family, but this Noah was not a water
man.

Twenty years ago this fine game fish is said
to have been abundant in the Neuse about Mil-

Fishing in North Carolina. 59

burnie and also in Crabtree Creek, near Ral-
eigh, but for some unaccountable reason it has
become so scarce in recent years that it is not
sought after. Indeed it has become almost ex-
tinct in these waters. Possibly the habit of
going in small schools made it more easy to
exterminate them, because if the fisherman once
struck such a school he might readily play havoe
with it.

CHAPTER VII.

Tar Mountain Trovt.

Forest and stream are nearer to Nature than
anything else. I give thanks for having been
born in the forest, one hundred miles from a
railroad; and having lived in steam—hot
water—most of the subsequent period. I have
enjoyed that life. I am not satisfied, but I am
satisfied with what lot God has permitted me
to escape.

In my side-line—polities—I have made a
considerable amount of enemies; but I made a
few firm friends, such as Conkling, Blaine,
Logan, Ransom, and Vance. I escaped the con-
tagion of free silver, free warehouses, free corn
cribs, and free love; and when the Republican
party miscegenated with the Populist, I took
refuge in another domicile.

In the beginning of this chapter of accidents
I may as well warn the reader that fishing for
trout in the mountains anywhere, is by no man-
ner of means a gay sort of sport; but on the

Fishing in North Carolina. 61

contrary, it is a very serious and laborious,
humbugging proposition. The speckled trout
country is very sparingly inhabited and scantily
clad with a not very tame people; who, however,
when you come up with them, will treat you
kindly as they become convinced that you are
not looking for their outfits.

We have no char in North Carolina, at least,
I have never seen one here. It is a most beauti-
ful, red spotted fish of the salmon genus and
is shaped much like our mountain trout. It is
also wary and hard to come at; indeed, it affects
tarns situated away up in the solitude of for-
est—bare mountains, where only the caw of
crow and scream of eagle make nature seem
to be alive, such as the tarns in the beautiful
lake district of England.

The rainbow trout, introduced into our sap-
phire district from the Rocky Mountain coun-
try appears to closely resemble the char in
shape, marking, and perhaps habit, and I
should not wonder if it is the same fish. I
know that patience ceases to be an incentive to
cuss when one is fishing for char; because I

62 Fishing in North Carolina.

spent two whole summers in the pursuit and
did not get one. Somewhat like the rose, which,
to the connoisseur, is to be seen not smelt, the
char it to be seen, not felt.

When young it may wind and bound up
stream from sea to tarn; but, becoming big and
old, it cannot get down hill again to the sea, if
it wanted to do so.

But we have a native incumbent of our moun-
tain streams beautiful indeed with its dark
spots and comely in its sprightliness; as well
as heroically game for a little fellow. He does
not get large, scarcely ever exceeding half a
pound in weight, but he makes up for lack of
bulk by want of lethargy; being alert, spry and
voracious he does not necessarily wait for a
morsel of food to touch the water, but will jump
out and meet the food at least part of the way.

This mountain, or brook trout, has been prop-
erly named, for he is almost always a lover of
a home in the small mountain streams, high up,
where the water is cold; amidst laurel thickets,
rocks, rattle snakes, pools and swirls; out of
sight of man and other beast.

Fishing in North Carolina. 63

There is no more palatable fish anywhere
than the little dainty of the cold mountain
water, but it has become so scarce (it always
was difficult to get at) that fishing for them is
a very unsatisfactory sport.

My personal observation of the speckled trout
only extends, so far as this State is concerned,
to the head-waters of the New and Watauga
rivers in the Blowing Rock section; where I
whiled away one summer in the pursuit, got a
little sport and a plenty of toil.

Not seeking health or society, I did not dwell
at the Rock, but went up into the artless hills
and meadows; away from the haunts of men
and petticoats, to the habitat of the never weary
trout.

My equipment consisted of an eight ounce
bamboo rod, appropriate line and leader, a book
of flies, suitable for the month, the water and
the sky, a box of live grass-hoppers, and a boy
to “tote” the lunch et cetera.

Starting about sunrise I would make for the
highest point of the stream, scramble through
the laurel thicket down to the water; and fix for

64 Fishing in North Carolina.

a day’s hard work, but there was enough fun
connected with it to compensate for the time lost
in work. Into the icy cold water I go wading
down stream, for it is safer falling down stream
than up stream, just as one hurts himself more
falling up stairs; and the exertion is not so
great. The water keeps cold, and I frequently get
out on a boulder, rub my feet and legs, call the
boy, complain about the cold, lighten the load of
et ceteras and plunge into the stream again.
Picking out likely places for fish I cast my flies,
and if I miss hanging to a laurel bush and drop
within ten feet of a beauty, I am pretty sure
to get a rise, tolerably sure to make a miss, and
once in a year or two get a fish. But years
amount to nothing in this mountain trout busi-
ness, among a dreary people whose money crop
consists in apples, cabbages and scenery—ap-
ples for distilling and dilluting the head with,
cabbages for filling and annoying the appendix
with, and scenery for disturbing and wearying
the heel with.

If you just once see your cast gently dropping
to the objective spot, see a 1-8 pounder leap out,

Fishing in North Carolina. 65

hit your fly a foot above the water, then hit him,
bringing him after a zig-zag, and jumping fight,
to creel, you feel as if you had the best sort of
religion ; and call on the et cetera boy for some
more nourishment.

But your eye has got to be keen enough to
see when the trout takes the fly into his mouth
and you must strike then, if not sooner, or you
lose him. Likewise, when the fly is on the water
trickling down stream (it must always be kept
on the move), you ought to strike at every rip-
ple you see on the water within a foot of your
fly. Do not wait for the fish to be fool enough to
hook himself, for, unlike a catfish, he will only
do this accidentally. If they are not hungry
for flies,try small grasshoppers, and let your line
ree] them down stream out of sight; and it will
prove a killing bait, although rather unsports-
manlike proceeding.

Fish on down stream until a quarter past one
o’clock, then give your stomach some play and
yourself an hour’s rest. Rejuvenate yourself
and tumble down stream again until dark or

5

66 Fishing in North Carolina.

sooner, and go home tired and lucky if you have
ereeled twenty-six beauties averaging two ounces
each.

For this kind of sport a pair of shoes is
absolutely the only article of clothing that is
necessary. Nobody will see you, nor would it
matter in that Adam and Eve country; and you
will get warm after freezing half an hour.
Wading boots are no good at all, because you
are likely to drop neck-deep at any moment.
Were it possible, it would be better to have your
shins on behind, as the rocks are very hard, and
you will likely have a calf in front of your leg
next morning.

The best catch I ever made was sixty-five fish,
and half a pound was the biggest in the bunch;
but, by the way, he was caught by the man who
acted as my guide. I did not take him along
another time, as I thought, I might have caught
that fish myself.

Fishing in North Carolina.

67

‘Nou, Yooug

68 Fishing in North Carolina.

“The brook trout is emphatically a cold water
fish, thriving best in clear mountain streams
with a maximum temperature of 50 deg. F.,
although in some places it flourishes in short
coastal rivers and runs to salt water in winter.
Its food consists largely of insects, worms and
crustaceans. While the species reaches a length
of eighteen to twenty-four inches, in North Car-
olina it is of comparatively small size.

“The spawning time is in autumn, and the
spawning beds are shallow places near the banks
of streams. The female makes a kind of nest
in the gravel, and guards the eggs during incu-
bation. The eggs average about .15 inch in
diameter, and the number laid varies from a
few hundred to several thousand, depending on
the size of the parent. The hatching period is
about fifty days in water of fifty degrees tem-
perature.”

Fishing in North Carolina. 69

FISHING.

A youth beside the water sits,
The noonday sun is warmly beaming;
His nose and neck are turkey red,
His eye with radiant hope is gleaming.
He watches close the bobbing cork
Advance upon the tiny billows ;
A jerk, and a swish, and high above
He lands a sucker in the willows.
That’s fishing.

A fair maid trips the tennis court,

A dozen eyes admire her going;
Her black-and-yellow hat band burns

A hole through the sunset’s glowing ;
She drives the ball across the net

And into hearts consumed with wishing
She drives a dart from Cupid’s bow,

She’ll land a sucker, too.

She’s fishing.

So, whether the game be fish or men,
The bait be kisses, worms or blushes
The place at home by sunny pool,
Or tennis ground at evening hushes,
"Tis the old game the serpent played
With Mother Eve in Eden’s bowers,
And Adam’s sons and daughters all
Will love the sport to time’s last hours.
That’s fishing.
—The Asian.

CHAPTER VIII.
Worm Fisuine ror Broox Trovur.*

BY LOUIS RHEAD.

One out of every twenty brook trout anglers
uses the fly; the rest fish with worms. Only
one of the nineteen is an experienced worm
fisherman; the remaining ones are what I shall
term “plumpers,” who only make a practice of
fishing during a short vacation in the summer.
It is to these plumpers (so called because they
only know how to plump a worm into the water
and yank a trout back again) that I wish to
present a few ideas whereby they may get some
real sport, instead of being merely butchers
intent only on slaughter.

They soon get to know by experience that
brook trout, even when fully gorged, cannot
resist a live, wriggling worm. Therefore, it is
only an idiot who fails to land them. There is
infinitely more shame than pride in having a

*From “Ovutine”’ Magazine, by permission and excepted from
copyright.

Fishing in North Carolina. 71

photograph taken by the side of a long string of
trout—often the greater part being little above
the size allowed by law to be taken. I advocate
giving the fish a fair show and getting some real
sport out of the game. Legitimate worm fish-
ing is an art easily learned, giving ample pleas-
ure and playing to the angler.

In the small, swift-running brooks that tum-
ble over rocks and sunken tree trunks, where the
water swirls in foamy circles, the tackle should
be of the lightest and daintiest description—a
four-ounce, eight-foot rod that is not too long
and getting everlastingly entagled overhead;
that is easy to guide through brambles and laurel
bushes—such a rod is invaluable. Have the
line to match—the thinnest and lightest in
weight; also have the reel very small, with a
stiff click to retard any rushes under low
branches or fallen logs. Trout always dart off,
if possible, to hiding places where it is difficult
to dislodge or get at them. The best leader for
this fishing should be very fine indeed, and only
three feet long, as it often happens that the tip
cannot be raised because of overhanging

72 Fishing in North Carolina.

branches, and a long leader cannot be reeled in
close enough to get the net under the fish. A
willow net with rubber ring to fit on the wrist
is advisable; especially so when the fish run to
a good size, of from ten to fifteen inches, for it
often happens that when such a fish is hooked
there is no place in sight where one can lead
him out of the water on to the beach.

The hooks cannot be too small, and a liberal
number should be supplied, and tied to a fine
snell of the same thickness as the leader. This
completes the outfit. It is a great mistake to
use split shot to sink the worm. The bait should
at all times float on the surface like a fly. Trout
always rise to a worm (and will never follow it
to the bed of the brook, even in deep water),
providing the angler is out of sight.

In baiting the hook never put on a great
bunch of three or four worms; it is not half as
effective as a small single worm. With a big
bunch some time must elapse before the fish
swallows it, and then if a small fish is landed
he has to be killed to extract the hook. Large
fish will swim around a bunch of worms as if

Fishing in North Carolina. 73

doubtful about touching it, because in nature no
such thing happens, whereas a single worm only
half impaled on the hook with the tail wriggling
around arouses an instant desire to seize it
quickly. To properly hook a worm it should be
worked right over the hook until it is entirely
covered. That will nearly insure the barb’s
piercing the lips instead of the hook being swal-
lowed.

Rebait every time a fish is caught, oftener if
necessary. Never have ragged parts left on the
hook. All parts of the dead worms should be
removed. Have nothing on the hook but the
single live worm, with one-third wriggling. Most
expert bait anglers scour their worms, always
having a large supply on hand in a good-sized
tin can, having one-fourth filled up with a sandy
soil, and on top lay some damp moss, soaked
well with milk and a few pieces of bread. In
a few days the worms will harden and become
lighter in color. When ready to start have the
bait box wrapped round the waist and a part of
the worms put in the box. Now that all is
ready we will make our way toward the stream

74 Fishing in North Carolina.

or mountain brook not more than twelve feet
wide, nor more than a foot and a half deep,
except in the pools made by logs and rocks. Step
lightly into the water and from the middle of the
brook cast the worm gently, without a splash, to
the right bank, having the line the same length
as the rod. Work the bait in a semicircle to the
left bank. If no fish takes it reel out another
six feet of line, thus covering a further distance,
and draw it slowly across to the other side. The
force of the water keeps the bait on the surface
in sight of the angler. If a fish takes the bait
he will rush to the bank as he sees the angler;
he will not run up stream.

If the fish is a ten-inch trout slightly check
the line, but hold him from going a distance;
then turn him and gradually reel until he is
near enough to place the net under him. Now
rebait with a fresh worm and take a few steps
forward and repeat the same movements as be-
fore, taking care, however, to use the utmost
caution in moving down stream—no floundering
about or waving the rod. Let the water carry
the bait forward after the side cast is made, and

Fishing in North Carolina. 75

keep a steady eye on the bait. As you move
along, on coming to a tree trunk lying across
the brook, which forms a deep pool, lengthen the
line (keeping some distance away) and let it
run its course. The eddies will carry it just
where the trout lies. If he takes it he will surely
run under the log and possibly get free, unless
a sharp watch is kept on his movements and he
is stopped by leading him to shallow water—
gradually raising the tip of the rod as the line
is reeled in.

Fish, trout especially, love to lie in shady
spots, beneath laurel bushes and other impedi-
ments that make it difficult for the angler to
reach them; and they will seldom let him get
nearer than twelve feet, but dart away up stream
if possible.

In these small brooks one of the most impor-
tant things to remember is to keep out of sight.
Trout dash away a distance of fifty feet in no
time, and it is no use to follow, and the only
way is to leave them for another visit later on.

The angler must be on the alert every minute,
though no strike is necessary in bait fishing for

76 Fishing in North Carolina. ~

brook trout. They firmly hook themselves every
time they go at the bait, but the line should in-
stantly be tightened. Then their chances of
getting away are reduced to a minimum.

Worming fishing is in many respects the exact
opposite of fly fishing. The latter method makes
it necessary to keep the nose of the fish above
water, whereas worm fishing requires it to be
kept under water as far as it is possible.

CHAPTER IX.

Pixs, “Jack,” “Rep Fry.”

I smaxz class this fish as game, although
“butcher” would be a more appropriate name,
because, if a large one, he will often feed when
not hungry nor too lazy, and will sulk when
hooked. He is cruel, lazy, foolish, omnivorous;
and the most inquisitive fish that swims in fresh
water.

They are indiscriminately called jack, but the
pike, with us, attains to a weight of seven
pounds, whereas the pickerel is evidently a true
young pike, but the colors are somewhat lighter.

The red-fin pike is almost a distinct fish, ex-
cept in manners and customs; is more numerous,
rarely ever exceeds a pound and a half in weight,
and is a more toothsome fish, greatly resembling
our mountain trout in size, beauty and edible
quality. It is most appropriately called “red-
fin.”

‘Jack will bite more readily in winter than
at any other time of the year. I have broken

78 Fishing in North Carolina.

the ice at the edge of a pond, paddled up the
“run” towards the source, and caught them with
a piece of red flannel for bait on the coldest sort
of day. A small red-fin is a dangerous bass bait,
and probably his big kinsman would also take
care of him if tempted.

All varieties will readily take artificial bait,
in trolling or dibbling, and will greedily attack
any live bait, such as small fish, frog, bug, bird
or fly. In fact, any moving object will be looked
into, whether red rag, white pork, tin cup or
painted cork. His fancy requires no tickling
with dainty things so long as the object is on
the move—he only insists on the delusive pleas-
ure of believing that the bait is alive, and he
will rush it. If you have failed to hook him
with several kinds of bait, he will occasionally
jump into your boat, ostensibly for the purpose
of seeing if any other kind of bait is handy.

They are so voracious that it is difficult to
fill them, but they are not voracious when play-
ing with your bait, because you never know
when to strike him safely. Often, he will take
your cork under, bass-like ; another time he will

Fishing in North Carolina. 79

nibble your minnow off, terrapin-like, and then
again he will gradually sink the cork, allow it
to come to the surface, a few yards away, for an
instant and then slowly start under and off—
now you know it is a jack, but you do not know
whether to strike or wait awhile. It is safer
to strike, because he is now in the act of pouch-
ing the minnow.

If you have a big minnow on and it is a big
jack, not hungry, he will likely take it deep in
water and consider it some time before pouch-
ing; but how are you to know that it is a big
jack? Give him plenty of time and he will
notify you—by hanging himself and ringing
the bell.

Dibbling for red-fin pike in shallow, clear
water of ponds and streams is not sport, but is
productive of results; because every one that
sees the bait will come to creel, if you use a
slender, stiff rod and only eighteen-inch line.
Where plentiful, as in Mingo Swamp in Har-
nett and Johnston, it is an easy turn to catch a
breakfast of these dainty fish.

There is a black water swamp in Robeson and

80 Fishing in North Carolina.

Bladen counties which obtained notoriety from
the fact of its having for a long time harbored
the Henry Berry Lowrey gang of robbers and
murderers. It is a mile or more in width, and
a considerable stream sluggishly meanders its
way through the more than forty mile length of
the swamp, that abounds in big jack, big chub,
fliers and blue bream. The swamp is densely
wooded with cypress, and the -young trees grow
so thickly that man cannot make his way with-
out the aid of an axe. The stream, varying in
width from ten to forty yards, and generally
deep, is enveloped in almost impenetrable gloom
at midday. An occasional chirp of bird, call of
water fowl, intonation of frog or cry of squirrel
is all the relief one gets in this awful solitude.
The darkest night adds no uneasiness to the situ-
ation, except the wise remarks of the big owls.
The dwellers along the border of this water-
land are a deservedly simple people. They hunt
and fish for a living and work for pleasure.
They are hospitable in exchange for the dol-
lar. I abided with them several weeks and mixed
freely. There are deer, raccoon, ’possum and

Fishing in North Carolina. 81

lots of squirrel in the swamp but very difficult
to come at, and there are dangers to be met in
the pursuit. An involuntary wetting is not alto-
gether pleasant. The cypress knees are pro-
miscuous and hard to get friendly with, and the
snakes are ugly, impudent and numerous. Frost
had not yet driven them into winter quarters;
so that I had little pleasure in hunting. But
such fishing! Jack-rocking! I am glad I was
taught this fun. I would not be without the
experience. I am not sanctified. The people
thereabout belong to the Sanctificationists. Three
of us went jack-rocking one night. We collected
an armful of fat lightwood splinters for torches,
a box of matches, a jug of strong water; and
groped our way to the landing place of the boats,
on the creek or drain. Lashing two boats to-
gether, side by side, we took our places, one in
the bow, one in the stern and myself amidship.
I was torch-bearer. All being ready, I made
light and the others paddled, splashed and made
as much fuss as possible. Here they came—the
jacks—a big one butting, banging against my

6

82 Fishing in North Carolina.

head so hard I thought the man behind had, in
his excitement, hit me with his paddle. But as
we went up stream the battle increased in fero-
city, the bombardment of jack, bass and fliers
became fearful. The light I held was the centre
of attraction, and my face the target, and the
hits were too frequently made. I would forget
to hold the torch right and the hot pitch drop-
ping on my hand would hurt. But the excite-
ment smothered the pain. It seemed as if every
fish was trying to jump out of the water. They
jumped from everywhere towards the light.
Some would come out from under the bank to
see what was up. All sizes were on the move.
The most of them would go clear over the boats;
some would come back and over again; many
would drop into the boats; and often, no sooner
had a big one let go at the right side of my head
than another would punch me on the left, as if
to put my head back in place. The excitement
worried me, and in less than half an hour we
had more fish than we cared to “tote” home—
several hundred. I soused the light in the water
to stop the battle of the “Wilderness,” and we

Fishing in North Carolina. 83

felt our way back to the starting point. I am
glad it is over. It was too much fun.

These people told me that they often go to a
small lake in the neighborhood, and at night
anchor a boat in the middle of it with a light
on it, then form a circle about the edge of the
lake and jump in with sticks and make a noise,
the jacks will all jump for the boat. I believe
it, too, because the jack is such an inquisitive
fool, and while he is brave he is yet so far
human-like that he is Hable to run when he gets
seared.

Trolling for pike in a row-boat on Lake Con-
iston, England, I caught my biggest fish, weigh-
ing twelve pounds. The lake is five miles long
by, probably, a mile wide and several hundred
feet deep. JI had for a troll an ordinary gold
and silver spoon with treble-hook tail, and about
100 yards of line, the most of it in the water,
reeled from a two-foot wooden rack.

As soon as the fish hitched on I gave out more
line, and he came in several times, keeping me
busy taking slack, but soon gave up the rush
idea and took to sulking. He would go bottom-

Ina.

North Carol

ung iM

Fish

84

“ya

Lag Mtg foyig paha-yin

Fishing in North Carolina. 85

wards and stand still, seemingly, for minutes.
I did not care to aggravate him, yet I wanted
him to do his own worrying by getting into
action and thereby tire himself. I had learned
that it was better to humor a sulker. After a
while he got a move on and, taking out my line
in different directions, played himself to a stand-
still, when I brought him to the boat and my
man did the gaff act nicely. He was not very
long but not chunky.

On cloudy days, with a light wind, one may
have luck and some amusement trolling for
jack ; but it is nothing like the sport got out of
hunting the bass, hitting him and playing him
around and about the boat. If he gets away in
his fight, all right, I would rather lose him than
jerk him over my head as some people do, or
take him out before be gets tired and says
“enough.”

I believe I caught the only wall-eyed pike ever
taken in midland North Carolina. I got it in
the Neuse, a few miles below Milburnie, and
took it to Mr. Brimley at the State Museum to
learn what fish it was called in the books.

86 Fishing in North Carolina.

Other Pike.

Fishing in North Carolina. 87

Lawson (1709) said:

“The jack, pike or pickerel is exactly the same
in Carolina as they are in England. Indeed, I
never saw this fish so big and large in America
as I have in Europe; these with us being seldom
above two foot long, as far as I have yet seen.
They are very plentiful with us in Carolina, all
our creeks and ponds being full of them. I once
took out of a ware above three hundred of these
fish at a time.”

CHAPTER X.
Ovr PxercHes.

Tus is one of the most difficult subjects to
handle, connected with fish life; because every-
body knows a perch and has a name for it. The
authorities class all these, as well as black bass,
under the common denomination.

Sun fishes, which, perhaps, is well enough;
but why not Moon fishes ?

The wall-eyed pike is also charged up as a
pike-perch, which it certainly is not.

Since my boyhood days my idea has been fixed
that no long fish can be a perch—not even the
raccoon or yellow perch because of its shape.
Some other name ought to be found for these
fishes.

There are many kinds of perch in our waters,
and their names are still more numerous and
very confusing. It is better simply to say you
caught a perch, if you would avoid an argument
without a settlement.

Our perch run small compared with those of

Fishing in North Carolina. 89

the Old World. Isaac Walton mentions one,
caught in England, measuring two feet in
length. The longest perch on record measured
twenty-nine inches,

In Russia they frequently weigh as much as
seven pounds.

Three pounds is a very big perch with us.

Take the world over the smaller the water the
smaller the fish, and the warmer the water the
larger the fish.

Perch grow very fast; in the first year an
inch perch will become a six-inch one in the
third year. A half-pound perch will produce as
many as 250,000 eges in a season.

First and foremost in the perch family I
must place the “crappy,” which is most com-
monly talked about, yet it is neither common
nor so well known as it should be.

It is very generally called “white” perch, but
it is not a true white perch. This fish is silver-
gray in any other than black water, where its
color becomes speckled, black and white, the
male being darker on a white ground than the
female.

90

Fishing in North Carolina.

Crappy.

Fishing in North Carolina. 91

It is plentiful in the Neuse and tributaries,
schools and scatters, like bass, and appears to be
a sort of chum to bass, frequenting the same
waters, and preferring live bait. Specimens
have been taken measuring as much as fifteen
inches, although they generally run much smal-
ler. This fish will take a small minnow as
early as February, in the river; and while the
erappy is not such a free biter as some people
assert (up country), yet the strike is thrillingly
bass-like and the fight pretty, but the mouth is
so tender that much play is not permissible, as
they will tear loose from the hook. TI do not like
the name “bass,” as applied to it, but prefer
“erappy.” It is thinner than the bass and yet
longer than other perch. The flesh is “good to
eat,” as indeed all perch are palatable.

It does not nest like other varieties, but it
deposits its spawn upon bushes, stumps and
rocks.

White Perch.

Fishing in North Carolina. 93

All fish are liable to partly take on the color
of the water they live in; hence, we often hear
many distinct varieties called “white perch,”
which is not true. Again, age makes a differ-
ence in coloration. The genuine white perch,
although called by other names, according to
locality, is plentiful in all our rivers and lakes.
It is a free biter, and while preferring small
minnows, will readily take cut-fish bait, and
give plenty of sport for its size. However, there
is a knack in knowing when to strike this par-
ticular perch, which I never got “onto.”

94

Fishing in North Carolina.

Red-belly ; Robin.

’

Long-eared Sun Fish

Fishing in North Carolina. 95

The mouth is rather small, it has two dorsal
fins, attains to a weight of three pounds, and
goes in large schools.

The long-eared “robin” or red-belly is fre-
quently met with, but it is a worm feeder and
slow biter, and, moreover, a lazy, don’t-care,
swallower of bait.

On the contrary, the “warmouth,” known by
every other sort of a Christian name attached to
the surname “mouth” is everywhere, although
not abundant anywhere, will readily take any
sort of bait, and take it in such a manner you
think you have got a whale until he quickly
gives up and comes in without a kick left to flop
good-bye with. If your fist is small enough you
can jam it in one of these six-inch allmouths.

It is often called “goggle-eye,” has ten spines
in the dorsal fin, and hardly ever exceeds ten
inches in length.

We also have “fliers” in the Neuse River ter-
ritory, which bite strongly and make a skittish
fight; but they are not often caught with hook
and line. The “book” says they are night feed-
ers, which probably accounts for so few of them

96

Fishing in North Carolina.

Warmouth or Goggle-eye.

Fishing in North Carolina. 97

being taken. They are, however, very pretty
fish, and the sharp bones in the dorsal fin are
very dangerous. W. Z. Blake caught one of
these fish in Myatt’s pond, which weighed two
pounds and four ounces, was eleven and one-
quarter inches long and six and a half inches
deep.

The “flier” has eleven dangerous dorsal spines
‘and five anal spines.

For its size the “blue bream,” with many
affectionate aliases, carries much sport. He
reaches a pound and a half in weight, is stocky,
has little lengthwise shape; in fact, may be com-
pared to a big “sixteen to one” dollar, with a
mouth on one edge and a tail on the opposite
edge. He bites hard and freely, preferring a
big worm bait, and if you come across a school
you can take it all in.

His mouth is small, thick and tough, so that
it is difficult to lose him, even purposely. He is
hard to kill. His flesh is firm, flaky and of nice
flavor.

Like the “crappy” he also lives on friendly
terms with the bass. The young bream is nearly

7

98

Fishing in North Carolina.

Flier.

Fishing in North Carolina. 99

white, and I have never been able to negotiate
one of them as bait with a bass, while other
amall perch might quickly find lodging in a
bass’ stomach.

This is the best fish of the perch family to
mix with bass and shad roaches in ponds. The
bass will not harm the bream nor the bream
harm the roaches, thus making an ideal fish-
pond. This bream is very prolific, is a good
feeder and is hardy. Although it thrives best
in streams it will do well in lakes and ponds.
Nearly white when young, it becomes a slaty-
blue with age, and is the largest of the true
perches. It is sometimes called “blue joe,” very
pretty, so let us know him as “Joe.” It is not
a good pan fish. However, writers differ about
this matter.

Perch prefer clear water and commonly dwell
among plants near the bottom. They grow very slow-
ly, and not migratory.

The small red-belly perch, commonly called “gourd
seed” perch, is abundant in all our lakes and ponds.
The small boy’s delight—it will bite at almost any-
thing it can swallow, and at any time; and withal, it
is an excellent pan fish.

100 Fishing in North Carolina.

The “calico” bass is a perch with which I am
but imperfectly acquainted. Although it is said
to be a free biter, yet it does not count as a
game fish—surrendering too quickly. It is not
adapted to pond culture because it is too partial
to feeding on young fish.

It is known in some localities as silver or
speckled perch, and weighs as much as two
pounds. And it is also bothcred with the addi-
tional name, “crappy.”

The long yellow “raccoon” perch is very abun-
dant in the Neuse and Tar rivers, but it is an
undesirable fish for ponds on account of its
destructive habits,and it is not liked as a fish
because it is so difficult to clean.

The “mud chub,” a big mouth, vigorous bit-
ing little fellow is known everywhere, and is
said to be a night feeder.

It is quite possible that so many different
names for perch may have been caused by mix-
ing the species in land-locked ponds.

We know that the rock and the shad have
been hybridized, and there is no reason why
hybrids should not result from mixing different
species of perch in confined locations.

Fishing in North Carolina.

101

‘Yyosag Nope X

102 Fishing in North Carolina.

Large-mouth perch prefer minnow or other
live bait; but the young wasp, any fly, grub and
angle worms will be readily taken by the small-
mouth fish.

To tempt perch to a particular spot, put a few
minnows in a large, clear glass bottle, stop it so
as to allow fresh water to come in, and sink it
at any desirable place; the perch will congregate
as if it were a Primitive Baptist annual meet-
ing.

I am sorely aware that all I may say in my
fish stories may not agree with the experience of
others, but I get some consolation in the knowl-
edge that I get some pleasure myself out of the
relation of a fisherman of forty years’ standing
on two continents—in othcr words, I get some
pleasure, and whenever I lack in practical per-
sonal experience I seek the advice of my friend,
Bill Blake, the best fresh-water fisherman in
North Carolina. Neither he nor I fish to fill
our stomachs.

CHAPTER XI.

Tue CATFIsH AND SUCKERS.

We North Carolinians have no catfish big
and strong enough to pull a Mississippi River
stern wheel steamboat off a mud bank, but the
familiar old catfish of our boyhood days is abun-
dant in all our waters. Whether, like an eel,
he glides over land in the dew of night, when he
usually stirs about, from pond to pond, it is not
certain; guard against his intrusion as much
as we will he gets there all the same—possibly
through the assistance of the clouds.

The first fish I ever caught was a catfish,
which courteously hitched one side of his mus-
tache to my hook and could not unhitch it by
himself. I was a proud boy that day.

The catfish has no scales, but instead, it has
a plentiful outfit of horns, or thorns, at odd
places. Its head is the largest part, except when
the fish is full, and the innocent face reminds °
one of a full moon with a well-defined mouth
running clear across the center of it; yet it
never suffers itself to be eclipsed.

104 Fishing in North Carolina.

The catfish gets much blame that it is not
entitled to receive. It does little, if any, harm;
it can hardly catch a minnow, even when the
latter is on a hook; it can be prohibited from
becoming too many; it consumes refuse and
mud without pay, which is laudable; it eats
grass, which shows .that it is like man, an all-
round feeder, in taking into consideration both
animal and vegetable substances.

The flesh is fine, firm and white; well flav-
ored, and is really as much an epicurean diet
as that of lamprey eel. It is excellent, too, when
made a “muddle” of in connection with pork,
potatoes and red pepper, boiled to a standstill
Likewise, a diet of catfish nicely steamed and
served with tobasco sauce is a dish that is unfit
for the stomach of a collard and turnip gour-
met. Nicely baked cornbread, hoe-cake style,
without the addition of Yankee eggs and cotton-
seed lard is the best bread to eat with any sort
of fish.

Catfish should be skinned when being pre-
pared for the fire, and the best way to do this
is to make an erasure with a sharp knife around

Fishing in North Carolina, 105

the head just back of the eyes, when the skin
can be easily pulled off, the same as a rabbit.
It can also be removed by scalding, which, how-
ever, is a reminder of skinning in the hereafter.

We have several kinds of catfish, but the blue
or channel cat runs the largest in streams east
of the Blue Ridge, and is the cleanest feeder.
I have frequently caught them with hook and
line in the Pee Dee River weighing as much as
six pounds. In truth, I caught one recently in
Myatt’s pond, near Raleigh, which weighed four
and one-quarter pounds.

Catfish and eels seem to feed and bunk to-
gether, for where one is found the other is
pretty sure to be handy. By the way, both
American and English authorities say that eels
go to sea to spawn; while this may be true gen-
erally, yet I know that all of them do not take
this annual outing unless they have adopted a
relay system, because I have frequently taken
large eels in summer in streams where the out-
let to the sea was unobstructed. The eel is
highly esteemed as food in some parts of the
country; if it is allowed to get cold, however,

106 Fishing in North Carolina.

it will have to be cooked again—a peculiarity
of eel flesh.

In former years catfish were very plentiful
in the Pee Dee River, about the Grassy Islands,
where the river is a mile wide. Amongst the
hundreds of little grassy islands covered by
water in flood, and millions of rocks, in the
swifts and eddies, it was great fun to catch
them with a 60-yard seine; and often seven or
more hundred would be taken in a few hours,
brought to bank, cleaned and put into a big old
fashioned wash-pot for a well seasoned wet-stew.
Served hot, in tin cups, right there on the bank
it required no false appetite to be appreciated.

There is no such easy work as making a land
haul with the seine amongst these swifts and
eddies, in places one minute ankle deep and
the next “ker souse” over one’s head.

But the two staffs are quickly brought to-
gether, upstream in swift water and the seine
is bagged down stream the lead lines being
drawn together; then it is strictly hand fished
by all except the bow-legged man at the bag end
who allows the slack to wash between his legs

Fishing in North Carolina. 107

forming a cul de sac wherein he traps most of
the fish. The expert catfish catcher now gets
in his work in fishing the seine, and if there is
a big haul he sometimes “comes up” with a
catfish on each of his ten fingers which are
taken off by another person and handed over
to be strung upon a grapevine—then used as a
fish stringer.

The catfish is a bottom loving fish, and while
angle worms are the best bait, it will take almost
anything dead or alive, from a grasshopper to
a well-greased small sized tombstone.

The greatest curiosity in the fish family I
ever saw, or heard of, is a two-mouth catfish
caught by the writer in a pond near Osborn, N.
C., some years ago. It is about 6 inches long
and has two distinct mouths, a quarter of an
inch apart, with a mustache to each mouth.
Surely one big mouth ought to be enough for
any catfish. Fortunately I sent it to Mr.
Brimley at the State Museum, where it is still
preserved as a fish freak.

The spotted or albino catfish is positively
dangerous; a prick from his defensive appa-

108 Fishing in North Carolina.

ratus being as hurtful as a snake bite unaccom-
panied by imagination, and may require an ap-
plication of the madstone.

In hook and line fishing very little attention
is necessary as the fish will catch themselves if
they can only find the baited hook. ‘If it does
not succeed in hooking the mustache on, and is
bothered much in getting the bait off, it will
swallow the whole thing and stay on the hook
anyhow.

The yellow catfish of the Mississippi basin is
said to attain a weight of over one hundred
pounds.

Trot lines and set hooks on poles or bushes
is the usual method of catching catfish. The
trot lines may be as long as one pleases, but the
hook and leader should not be permanently
fastened to the main line. The hooks, on small
two to five foot lines, should be kept on a board
so as not to become entangled. After the line
is placed, these may be made fast to it at inter-
vals with an ordinary slip-knot. They can be
easily removed and put back on the board.

In fall or winter when fishing trot lines for

Fishing in North Carolina. 109

eatfish sink the bait near the bottom in rivers;
while in lakes and ponds the bait should be near
the surface. Why this is so I do not profess
to know.

Authority says: “The spawning occurs in
summer, the large eggs being first deposited in
a sandy depression, and subsequently taken into
the mouth of one of the parents, where they re-
main until hatching ensues; the young are re-
tained in the parent’s mouth for sometime after
hatching.” This has reference to the sea catfish
only, and I cannot believe the story because a
eatfish is too often occupied with swallowing
something; for the safety of those young ones
in his mouth.

In our sounds and rivers the catfish spawn
in June or July, and appear to protect their
eggs and young like the bass.

And eels go to the sea to spawn, and then die
before getting back to fresh water; thus revers-
ing the performance of shad. The young eels
go to fresh water in their second year, and re-
main there until mature, where, unfortunately
for the angler, is its real home in adult life.

110 Fishing in North Carolina.

The migration is down stream to sea by night
and upstream to fresh water by daylight. They
are enormously prolific. According to one au-
thority, a single female, 32 inches long pro-
duced over ten million eggs! No wonder she
died then.

Probably the old idea that the eel was the
male catfish, arose from the fact that no eggs
have been noticed in fresh water eels.

I have seen a continuous string of eels, miles
long, passing a jutting, rocky point, while bass
fishing on the Potomac above Washington City.

Eels feed chiefly at night, hiding in holes or
mud during daylight. It is then they strip all
the bait off trot lines.

Earth worms likewise come to the surface
and feed at night. On a frosty day they may
be enticed to the surface by pouring a little
warm, sweetened mustard and water into their
holes in the turf. They have no perceptible
sight nor hearing; but are very sensitive to
touch or jar; as may be verified by watching
how cautiously a thrush will approach a worm-
hole during twilight, or by placing a nearly

Fishing in North Carolina. 111

stiff-cold worm on the chords of a piano and ob-
serve it move when the piano is played. It can-
not be sight, may not be sense of hearing, but
the vibration starts the worm.

Next to the catfish the suckers are the most
abundant and widely distributed fishes in North
Carolina.

They are found indiscriminately in rivers,
ponds and lakes, and are known by many differ-
ent names. The flesh is usually white, rather
soft, somewhat flavorless; and, except the kind
known as red-horse, is hung on to so many small
bones that a person not fitted with a thresher
in his mouth had better not undertake to eat
this fish.

Indeed one writer says the “sucker” is com-
posed of “flabby solids filled with treacherous
bones.”

The redhorse is perhaps the largest of the
species, and frequently works its way up to as
much as 8 pounds in weight. ‘It also has fewer
bones and the flesh is firmer. They will cau-
tiously take a hook baited with angle worm or
dough mixed with lint cotton and return a little

112 Fishing in North Carolina.

fun for being hooked, but it is par excellence
the bank fisherman’s subject, who uses no float
and as soon as his rod trembles (stuck in the
ground) with all his might he snatches and
throws the fish over his head. Some sucker
fishermen use a “grab” or treble hook, which
rests upon the bottom, with a small baited hook
a few inches up the line; and as the suckers
suck the bait head downward and tail balanced
straight up the line a quick snatch is apt to
grab the fish anywhere between the head and
tail. This is not a commendable method.

During the early winter the redhorse is prob-
ably the best food fish the streams or ponds
afford. It is then usually taken in gill nets.

There are besides the redhorse the white
sucker, chub sucker, mullet; but the common
name “sucker” is ideal and sufficient because
everybody readily understands what is meant by
the term. Likewise they have various shapes,
and all kinds of bones.

They will not live long out of the water, but
are so numerous in all our waters that they con-

FBishing in North Carolina.

stitute a very important food fish where no bet-
ter can he obtained. The red horse is perhaps
the largest of the species, and frequently works
his way up to as much as 8 pounds in weight.
Tt also has less bones, and the flesh is firmer.

114 Fishing in North Carolina.

In the spring of the year vast quantities of
suckers are taken in traps on the falls of the
Pee Dee, in Richmond County, where during
the season all other fish than shad, are known
as “round” fish, and sold for little or nothing.

I am satisfied that the sucker is entitled to
more weight than the authorities credit him
with, because I have netted many five-pounders
in ponds where they are not so apt to grow a3
big as in rivers.

I am impelled to state the fact that fish will
spoil quicker when exposed to moonlight, than
sunlight. This is curious.

On the contrary meat will spoil quicker ex-
posed to sunlight than moonlight.

In dead things possibly the sun looks after
land inhabitants, and the moon is undertaker
for the water dwellers; an amicable and a wise
arrangement.

It is said that the reason tabasco sauce is so
expensive is because the Mexican consumes so
much hot condiment during life that his body
literally shrivels up when dead, and the neces-
sary extract is therefore very costly. It is very
good, however, to eat with fish.

Fishing in North Carolina. 115

HOM IMS

116

Fishing in North Carolina.

Catfish.

CHAPTER XII.

Sra Fisuuzs.

Tux shape of our coast line, and the char-
acter and extent of the numerous sounds and
bays furnishing outlets for such big rivers as
the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse and Cape Fear, make
it probably the best State in the Union for fish
to feed and frolic in.

Vast schools of all kinds of big fish coming
from the South are invited through the various
inlets to the sporting grounds supplied by Albe-
marle, Pamlico and other sounds, and other
schools coming from the North, driven by stress
of weather, possibly, to take shelter under Hat-
teras, also find their way into these sounds, and
thence make way up the many rivers and creeks
to favorite spawning grounds.

In consequence, our coast fishing industry is
an exceedingly important one; much capital is
invested and thousands of men and women em-
ployed in catching and handling the fish, liter-
ally millions being caught every year, and often

118 Fishing in North Carolina.

several hundred thousand at a single haul of the
seine. They are shipped and sold, both fresh
and salted; fresh in boxes, and salted in barrels.

When I began to write this series of fish
stories, I did not intend to have anything to say
about the salt-water fishes, because I had so
little practical knowledge of the matter. Al-
though I have lived three or four years on the
sea coast, I almost invariably went inland to
do my fishing.

For what I now say I shall hereby give
credit in advance to that admirable work on the
Fishes of North Carolina, by Mr. Hugh M.
Smith, Deputy U. S. Fish Commissioner; so
that all that follows herein is condensed from
information contained in the aforesaid book.

The shad is, generally speaking, the most
important salt-water fish, because it is not only
caught in the sounds but runs far up the rivers
to spawn; and is therefore more commonly
known and esteemed. While it passes most of
the year in the ocean, it seeks fresh water to
spawn; and is therefore not strictly or exclu-
sively a salt-water fish.

Fishing in North Carolina. 119

There is an old saying that the young shad
will continue to annually visit the place or river
where it was hatched, but this is not absolutely
known to be a fact. If it were true they must
be given credit for more sense than is possessed
by man. It is, however, likely that some of
them may return to the same river.

The shad is also the leading fish in North
Carolina for market purposes; the annual value
of the catch being as large as the two next most
important species combined.

The number caught in 1896 at the shad fish-
eries was approximately twenty-one millions.
This does not include those taken while ascend-
ing the rivers, of which no record is available.

The average number of eggs is from 25,000
to 80,000, although as many as 100,000 have
been taken from a large fish.

The sturgeon was formerly more abundant
than at present, and this is somewhat strange
when we consider that mature sturgeon may
yield from 1,000,000 to 2,500,000 eggs.

Individually considered, it is by far the most
valuable fish inhabiting the waters of our State.

120 Fishing in North Carolina.

A full sized female fish with roe will often
bring the fisherman $80, and it is a matter of
record that in 1906 a North Carolina fisher-
man, who caught 47 large sturgeon in salt
water, received for them over $2,500 after de-
ducting all expenses of shipment. From the
roe, caviar is made, which is a great delicacy
and very expensive.

The sturgeon is a bottom feeder, and ascends
rivers to spawn. It attains a large size, ex-
amples having been taken that were 12 feet long
and weighed 500 pounds.

The flesh is too oily to be palatable. Indeed,
the commercial value consists in the oil and
the roe.

The annual migration of alewives (herring)
from the sea to the rivers is for the purpose of
spawning. The herrings are very prolific; and
probably 100,000 eggs to the fish is a fair
average.

North Carolina is the leading herring State,
and for many years caught more of these fish
than any other two States. More than half a
million fish have been taken at one haul of the

Fishing in North Carolina. 121

seine in Albemarle Sound. Many of the fish
are sold fresh, but the principal trade is in salt
fish, which are put up in various ways in barrels
holding 200 pounds.

The menhaden is a very valuable commercial
fish, being caught chiefly for conversion into
oil and guano. Being very fat it is not much
eaten. .

The salt water mullet is caught in every
county bordering on salt water. This is by far
the most abundant and important salt water
fish in North Carolina. It is found on ocean
beaches, and in the sounds and estuaries during
a large part of the year; and is caught in drag
nets. The numbers taken are simply enormous,
sometimes as many as 500 barrels being secured
at a single haul. Two species of this fish range
along our coast, and in 1902 nearly seven mil-
lion pounds were taken.

The Spanish mackerel attains a large size,
from 9 to 10 pounds. As a food fish, it is one
of the choicest, being hardly surpassed by the
pompano.

North Carolina has long been famous for its

122 Fishing in North Carolina.

blue-fish, which support special market fisheries
and also afford excellent sport to many hun-
dveds of persons annually. It sometimes reaches
a weight of 30 pounds, and is one of the most
highly esteemed and economically important of
food fishes, and always fat.

The blue-fish is one of the most ravenous and
destructive of fishes, and amongst the strictly
salt water fishes of North Carolina it is ex-
ceeded in value only by the mullets and sea
trout. Yarrow has left the following note on
the fish during 1871:

“This species appears in Beaufort Inlet in
carly spring, but is taken only in nets. In June
it commences to take the hook, but the months
of August and September are the best for troll-
ing. .\t this time enormous numbers may be
found in schools swimming alongside shoals in
tolerably rough water. On the 23d day of Sep-
tember, 1871, four persons, in four hours, took
by trollmg 660 blue-tish. During the latter
part of this month, in the same year, enormous
schools were noticed in and near the ship chan-
nel, focding upon the red-billed gar, socalled.

Fishing in North Carolina. 123

The stomachs of individuals taken were literally
crammed with these fishes. The very large
specimens of blue-fish occasionally met with in
the markets in January never enter Beaufort
Inlet; they are taken on the beach from Cape
Lookout northward, the run lasting sometimes
two months, occasionally only a week or ten
days.”

Lawson’s note on the blue-fish in North Caro-
lina waters in the first decade of the eighteenth
century has some historic interest:

“The blue-fish is one of our best fishes and al-
ways fat. They are as long as a salmon, and
indeed, I think, full as good meat. These fish
come (in the fall of the year )generally after
there has been one black frost, when there ap-
pear great shoals of them. The Hatteras In-
dians, and others, run into the sands of the sea
and strike them, though some of these fish have
caused sickness and violent burnings after eat-
ing them, which is found to proceed from the
gall that is broken in some of them, and is
hurtful. Sometimes many cartloads of these
are thrown and left dry on the seaside, which

124 Fishing in North Carolina.

comes by their cager pursuit of the small fish,
in which they run themselves ashore, and the
tide leaving them, they cannot recover the water
again. They are called blue-fish, because they
are of that color, and have a forked tail, and are
shaped like a dolphin.”

Striped bass or rock fish weighing 60 or 75
pounds are not uncommon and occasionally one
is taken weighing 100 pounds. The striped bass
is one of the best and most valuable of Ameri-
can fishes, the tlesh being white, flaky, well-flav-
oved, and remaining firm when shipped to mar-
ket. As a game fish it is a general favorite in
both salt aud fresh water, and by many anglers
it is more highly esteemed than any other
species. .\ popular method of fishing, practiced
mostly in Southern New England is heaving
and hauling in the surf with a stout line baited
with menhaden or other fish.

In North Carolina the striped bass ranks
next in importance to shad and alewives among
the anadromous fishes, and the quantity here
caught exceeds that in any other State exeept
California.

Fishing in North Carolina. 125

In 1903 Mr. 8. G. Worth, while conducting
hatching operations on the Roanoke, stripped
from a 20 pound fish a mass of eggs which, after
fertilization and immersion in water, measured
60 quarts, equivalent to 1,500,000 eggs.

The pompano ranks as the choicest of our
salt water food fishes, and by many as the best.
It ranges in size from 2 to 4 pounds, but is not
so abundant off our coast as formerly.

The sheepshead is a well-known and valuable
food fish, and it reaches a weight of 20 pounds.
Tt occurs in our bays, from spring to fall, but
will not take the hook until late in the season.
The meat is white, flaky and juicy, and is
usually prepared for the table by boiling, or
baking. They are not numerous.

The spotted trout or squeteague, is very abun-
dant from February to June. There are sev-
eral varieties and various names.

Besides the foregoing our coast fisheries sup-
ply spots, drum, croakers, pig fish, flounders,
butter fish, and many other varieties.

Gordon in “Game and Food Fishes of
America,” says there are three billion herrings

126 Fishing in North Carolina.

in a single school, if it covers six square miles
and that there are some schools much larger
than this. That one school would give every
human being in the world three herrings.

The shad, the herring, the salmon, and the
sturgeon are the principal salt water fishes that
go to fresh water to spawn.

CHAPTER XITI.

Fisua Pownps.

Ir is such an easy, inexpensive, matter for
everyone who owns land to possess a fish pond
that really it is a wonder there are so few of
them throughout the country. And aside from
the sport afforded, one can quickly catch a
breakfast of the nicest and most nourishing
food, at a moment’s notice, in all weathers from
a well-stocked pond.

The first thing to be reckoned with is that
there shall be a never-failing supply of running
water, however small it may be; and the next
thing, although not absolutely necessary, is that
the pond be surrounded by woodland. When
it is situated in the midst of cultivated fields
the water gets muddy every time the land is
plowed, and the young fry are destroyed in the
breeding season by the washing rains. The
pond should have both deeps and shallows, shade
and sunshine. Trees, undergrowth, logs and
stumps should be left in for the use of the fish.

128 Fishing in North Carolina.

The water will in due course kill the trees and
undergrowth, and the insects in the rotting
wood will furnish fish food. Never plant water
lilies (flag) in a fish pond, they furnish nice
protection for small fish and are pretty, but
will soon take possession of the pond.

The location having been determined, the
dam will next command attention. It should
be constructed with ample wasteway, so that the
uncertain flood gates need not be depended upon
for protection against accident; and above
everything else the dam should surely be made
tight enough at the start, then, in the spawning
season it will keep the water at an average
level; otherwise the breeding of fish will be
very unsatisfactory.

The best dam, for such ponds, may be built
of large, green, pine logs, put up alike and in
the shape of the gable end of a log cabin; and
closely sheeted both up and down stream. Of
course it should be well spiled. The force of
the water up stream towards the apex will hold
the dam down and the lower tier of logs will
serve as an impregnable barrier against that

Fishing in Norlh Carolina. 129

upper pushing force, thereby holding the dam
in place; while the water gliding over in level
sheets will preserve the lower tier of logs from
rotting, and, what is equally important, will
prevent the formation of the deep, undermining
hole so common under tumbling dams. This
is cheaper and stronger than an ordinary rock
dam, and will last as long as the water does;
nor will it waste like rock, through the erosive
action of water. The dirt part of the dam
should be substantially built, and immediately
planted with trees having many roots. The
idea of the strength of this dam dates back to
Cesar’s bridge across the Rhine, perhaps. It
has long been known and utilized in the Black
River country.

Having got your pond filled with water, you
are then to decide upon the kind of fish you
wish to introduce into it.

I recommend only two species, as both game
and food fish; they are bass and perch, with
shad roaches as food for the bass. The large

9

130 Fishing in North Carolina.

mouth bass is preferable for ponds, and no kind
of perch is objectionable, except the yellow or
raccoon perch, which is hard to clean, dry to
eat, and destructive to young fry of other fishes.

The blue bream is more at home in streams,
and is wandering in its habits, but I must stand
by it as the “touch down” of the perch family,
even. for ponds. I have caught hundreds of
them in the head waters of Black River in June
and July when they come up in schools to
spawn. They put up a strong, nasty, little fight,
but are difficult to lose.

If the pond is intended only to furnish food
fish, no better can be introduced than the ordi-
nary mullet or sucker which is a ravenous
feeder, quick grower and very prolific, besides
requiring no attention at all and is easily
netted. Do not allow a carp in the pond.

The United States Fish Commission at
Washington, D. C., will give a reasonable sup-
ply of any fish desired to stock ponds where it
is not the purpose to raise fish for sale. All
that is necessary to get these fish, is to write to
the Congressman, stating the size, condition and

Fishing in North Carolina. 131

location of the pond; and the kind wanted. In
due time the fish will be sent free of any cost
whatever to the nearest station.

The most natural food for fish is insects and
worms, but they greedily seek and devour fish
eggs and small fish. It is but a repetition of
. the eternal round of matter; one goes out of
existence and still more (except in France)
come into existence. “The Book,” says “man
may come and man may go, but I go on for-
ever.” Man keeps apace; he increases in num-
ber; I do not think water increases in volume
except in its roll to the sea.

Nearly all fish are carnivorous, and while
they have a preference for certain kinds of diet,
they will take almost any living object that is
not too large. They really seem to live to eat,
and they grow accordingly as food is abundant.
Bull frogs will come to the pond, and toad frogs
will go on it and produce an abundance of fish
food in the shape of the venerable fat-bellied
tadpole and young frogs. All kinds of insects
will likewise come or happen on the water to
supply dessert for the fish; and, unless the pond

132 Fishing in North Carolina.

is overstocked, the fish will forage for their own
food and thrive.

Buckland, the great naturalist, speaking of
pike, says at one year old the fish will weigh
half a pound, at two years, two pounds, and will
attain as much as six pounds in his third year;
after which his growth slackens like the hen in
demonstrating her egg plant. There are excep-
tions, however. The largest pike which ever
came under his personal observation measured
46 inches in length, weighed 35 pounds, and
was 15 years old. He also refers to the habit
of pike when their stomach is full, of basking
in the sunlight at the top of the water; and
states that in this condition they are frequently
attacked by kingfishers and eagles, when a big
pike will put up a nasty fight.

The eagle is sometimes the loser, his talons
becoming embedded in the back of the fish and
being unable to let go and unaccustomed to div-
ing he is taken under and drowned.

The wound on the fish rapidly heals and fish-
ermen always get scared when they hitch on to
such a pike with the skeleton of the eagle on

Fishing in North Carolina. 133

his back—they scuttle either line or boat and
go home to tell about the matter.

A friend of mine says that while fishing be-
low the dam at Lake View Pond, a pike took
his minnow and darted off quickly, became
“hung up,’ and he was at a loss what to do.
Upon examination he found the pike stuck in
an augur hole that had been bored through the
plank dam to let the water off. Pike are noto-
riously strong swimmers.

This pond, by the by, situated on the S. A. L.
about 60 miles from Raleigh has been well
stocked with bass and other fishes, is a beautiful
sheet of water, with nice boats and boat houses;
and is really a part of the modern and thriving
winter resort, Lake View.

Pike are sometimes taken with eels in an eel
pot. A serviceable and cheap eel pot is made
of an ordinary barrel, both ends in, with sev-
eral large augur holes through which stockings
are pushed, open at both ends, and tacked
around the holes. The stocking hangs inside
and the fish going through the hole and stocking
after the bait will never find its way out.

Pike will not only take young ducks, bull

134 Fishing in North Carolina.

frogs and water rats, but will devour each other.
The “book” relates an incident where a ten
pound pike was caught with the head of a nine
pounder stuck in his mouth. The lad who
caught it wondered to see a “muckle fish wi’
twa tails.”

Buckland, however, remarks that more lics
have been told about the pike than about any
other fish. I suspect that is true.

Back to my story: Fortunately the rivers
and rivulets of North Carolina abound in all
sorts of minnows (small fishes) and insect life,
many of them literally teeming with a specics
called shad roach, in some localities shiners;
that afford abundant food for big fish. These
little fish hunt their own food, consisting of eggs
of other fish, worms and bugs, working their
way around the ponds in vast schools; accom-
panied by game fish which hover on the out-
skirts of the school, and when the appetite
prompts, they dart into the school. There is a
rush to get out of the way, a ripple on the water
is noticeable; and then all is calm again—one
fish having gone inside another and no hole is
made in the water.

Fishing in North Carolina. 135

A bass or jack or perch has punctuated a
period in a minnow; that is all, a minnow has
filled a void and no outside space is vacant.

Since writing the above a friend of mine who
I never suspected of knowing anything about
fish culture has kindly “put me wise” on a vital
point of interest regarding the value of fish
ponds, thus proving again the adage that there
is always something left to learn.

He advises that every man who owns a farm
with a suitable stream of water on it should
first paint his house white and the blinds green ;
secondly, plant a variety of fruit trees, those
most suited to climatic conditions; and lastly,
make a nice fish pond and stock it well. He
says this is the surest method of attracting a
purchaser. If the farmer should ever desire
to sell his property, he will need no other adver-
tisement; if he should not care to sell, the trees
and the pond will provide both pleasure and
income.

The trees will be bearing and the fish will
be ready for taking in the third year. The fish
may be fed upon finely chopped fresh meat,

136 Fishing in North Carolina.

such as liver, or meal dough, and although T
think their sense of hearing is deficient they
can be taught to come to the “bell” at a certain
hour everyday. For hundreds of years the carp
in the pond at Charlottenburg, near Berlin,
Germany, have thus been fed.

The ten acres, more or less, devoted to the
fish pond, after the second year will annually
return more dollars worth of food, saying noth-
ing of the sport, than the original value of the
acres plus the two hundred dollars cost of the
dam, and the value of the farm will thereby be
enhanced.

Any kind of dam besides the one recom-
mended will answer, the great desideratum be-
ing strong and tight, such as log or rock, which
muskrats cannot interfere with. A dirt dam
can only be protected against the rat by using
cement or wire, until the roots of trees have
webbed it firmly together.

In the open land, the pond should be well
ditched so as to prevent surface water from en-
tering it except through the natural channel; in
the woods, this does not matter so much.

Fishing in North Carolina. 137

Two many roaches in a pond will play havoc
with the spawn of other fish unless those other
fish do their duty by decimating the roaches;
but the bass will not fail in this line of profit,
pleasure and duty.

An overstocked pond is almost as bad as no
pond at all, unless the fish are fed from the
outside; that is by the owner, and even then
they will become stunted, and will not breed
well.

Thirty years ago there were twenty times as
many private fish ponds in North Carolina as
there are today, and the cause of the decline
was chiefly through the introduction, unwitting-
ly, by the government of the detestable Ger-
man carp. This is the hog of the fish family,
muddy-in taste and soft, destructive of spawn
and eats out a mud dam more energetically than
a muskrat.

Tf all the fish eggs spawned were hatched and
came to maturity the waters of the earth would
overflow the land. A salmon weighing 50
pounds is said to spawn two million eggs.

Tt is a mistaken idea that very old ponds

138 Fishing in North Carolina.

have the most fish in them; on the contrary
they have the fewest, although the fish are
larger. And fish breed faster in ponds with
plenty of shallow water and sunshine than in
deep water shadowed by trees.

Mr. A. S. Rascoe, owner of an old mill pond
in Bertie County that is two miles long, which
afforded excellent sport with both bass and a
large variety of speckled: perch until a few years
ago, noticed that the perch were becoming very
searce and also that the bass would not take
any sort of bait. He let the water run out and
found very few perch but a great many big bass,
weighing 5 or 6 pounds, and millions of shad
roaches. His theory, probably correct, is that
the bass being unable to get at the roaches in
the shallow water and amongst the thick under-
growth turned upon and destroyed the perches ;
so that the roaches being, practically immune
from attack, fed upon the spawn of both bass
and perch while their own spawn was, like
themselves, comparatively exempt from the
depredation of other fishes.

Mr. Rascoc is now at a loss to know how to

Fishing in North Carolina. 139

get. rid of the roaches. They cannot be seined
out because of logs and other obstructions.
They may be killed by drawing off the water
and putting quicklime in the run-way at the
head of the pond; but this method is rather
barbarous because it would destroy all other
small fish.

Ponds should be drawn off every seven years
in order to get rid of the big fish. The smaller
fish should be allowed to remain, and as they
grow very fast the pond will be ready for fish-
ing again at the end of two years.

It is well to remember that in the early stage
of drawing off a pond most fish run upstream,
whereas later they go downstream by force of
circumstances. I fix upon the seven year term
because that, or a multiple thereof, seems to be
the usual cycle for the happening of everything
else.

A sturgeon is on record as having been caught
which measured 12 feet in length, and weighed
over 500 pounds. Twenty-five per cent of the
roe-sturgeon (in weight) consists in eggs. It is
estimated that one sturgeon produces as many

140 Fishing in North Carolina.

as two and a half million eggs. Multiply that
sum by either 12 feet or five hundred pounds,
and take all the coming winter to figure out, if
all the eggs of all the sturgeons came to this
size, how long would it take to spill the ocean
out of its socket? Spiel.

This is the best of my fishtruths.

CHAPTER XIV.

Fisaing TackLeE—Someruine Ess.

Morvat helpfulness between fishermen, of
the genuine sort, will enable them to gain and
to give the fruits of actual land and water ex-
periences; and while many of the stories told
about the habits and freaks of nature’s cold
blooded inhabitants may appear to the outsider
and to the careless observer to be untruthful, yet
there is generally firm fact for the basis.

Do we not possess a great many well-defined
deformities and idiosyneracies in the human
race? We know that the Spartans had a drastic
legal remedy for the future beautification of
mankind.

Our knowledge of fish, bug and animal life
is, as yet, in its infantile stage. The chief pur-
suit of these creatures has until now been con-
fined to the one purpose of profit; with fish
for food and oil, bugs for ornament, dyes and
ointment, beast and feather life for a variety
of purposes but all for man’s material physical

purposes.

142 Fishing in North Carolina.

True nature students as well as genuine
sportsmen, follow the pursuit of the denizens of
the water more for the sake of head and heart,
than to morbidly gratify the stomach; hoping
to get before the general public a proper under-
standing of the relationship between man and
the lower order of created things; and while
progressing towards this end, if the searchers
get delight as well as enlightenment for them-
selves, it is nevertheless a distinct gain for man-
kind. What better recompense for that soul
than to feel that it possesses a fairly correct
knowledge of the habits and purposes, on land
and in water, of other creatures than man; that
not only fish, and birds, and beasts, and bugs,
had a motive in the Creation; but even the de-
spised earth worm does man more practical ser-
vice than all the geese in Christendom, notwith-
standing the fact that their cackling alarm has
no superior in the many mechanical devices of
man, nor amongst women.

There can be no manner of doubt that the
best fishing tackle is preferable, and that while
common tackle may occasionally catch more

Fishing in North Carolina. 143

fish; still a broken rod, a rotten line, or a faulty
hook, can make no amends for the loss of a fine
fish and a mellifluent temper. The best is none
too good when one considers that in the delights
of the peaceful avocation, quality may be of
vital importance, for surely peace reigns where
one can forget enemies as well as friends.

It is not necessary to obtain the prettiest nor
the costliest tackle; but I lay great stress on the
word best which can only be had at a greater cost
than inferior goods, and only from dealers of
repute.

I am not much on canoes, but I am some on
boats. I was born in the canoe age, in a dug-out
county, have dug the canoe out of a log myself;
and floated and fished with them, too, neither
myself nor the canoe sank whatever the risk
run, both rotten perhaps, yet alive in heart.

The era of the old style canoe (dug-out)
however, is past, and the era of a perfect wooden
boat for fishing purposes has never begun.

Some months ago I described in the News
and Observer, what I thought to be the best

Lit Fishing in North Carolina.

wooden boat for bass fishing. To be brief, it is
a light running boat 12 feet long, and 3 feet
wide from stem to stern unless you want it
coffin-shaped and pretty so that it will get
jammed between stumps or trees just when you
least want to make any noise, or jar the water.
This is the best boat, yet unbuilt, except by
myself; cheap, easy running, and safe enough
to stay on top of the water as long as man and
boat care to keep company.

But there are steel boats, compartment and
non-compartment built, light, easy running, un-
sinkable and nearly imperishable; the pioneer
and the best is the Mullins boat, which is good
for the rich sportsman and cheap enough for
any man who fishes.

Next we come to the rod, and whether it be
a split bamboo Touradif, a Bristol steel rod, a
greenheart, or a common cane, all are entitled
to the respect of the handler. Rod, line and
hook combined can catch but little game, if the
master spirit is a whole or half-witted bigot.

It is an invidious task to prescribe for any-

Fishing in North Carolina. 145

body what rod, line and hook should be used, but
there is a little glory in the cussing.

For use in bass fishing, in midland North
Carolina, I advise the purchase of one light
split bamboo rod, 10 feet long, and costing any-
where from 10 to 30 dollars which is used for
fly or bait; then a Bristol steel rod, say 8 feet
long for similar use. If time is no object and
opportunity is handy, also have one old style
15 foot home-grown cane to jerk the fish over
vour head with.

Reels are useless in uneducated rivers, lakes
and ponds, even if not handled by a person who
ought to be on the other end of the fishing ma-
chinery.

The line, well, that is more a matter of feel
than taste—the man will have the taste but the
fish will do the feeling. The fish will make use
of all the line senses while the man can scarcely
concentrate his wit upon any one sense, during
the battle. The best line is the best. Some
other truths are equally queer. With a reel
slick, smooth and strong and without a reel,
strong, smooth and slick, is the best line; and

10

146 Fishing iv North Carolina.

it can be secured by paying a big price for it.
Select your bass lines without consulting your
pocket, do the same with your perch lines; but
if you are a bank fisherman after eels, catfish
and other scavengers, select Cuttyhunk lines
which are the best all round cheap lines made.

As to corks or floats everybody owns his
choice; some preferring barrel-shaped, others
liking the hen-egg shape, others the rooster-egg
shape, and still others a cork pointed at both
ends; but I prefer a sound 3 1-2 inch cylinder-
shaped cork so that if I am momentarily oceu-
pied with thoughts about other people’s business
and the bass soks that cork under, I can hear
it make a noise like a Keeleyite taking a drink.

Then let us come down the line to the hook
and this should be medium-sized, sharp, and
springy, with a long and perfect barb. It does
not matter whether it have eye, or the line is to
be knitted on; most fishermen, however, prefer
the latter, claiming greater strength for it, and
I like it.

The present gencration has grown to favor
smaller hooks for all sorts of fish; and if we

Fishing in North Carolina. 147

consider the size of a 7-lb chub’s mouth it would
take a small anchor to fit it and hold the fish.

1 prefer the eyeless Limerick hook with a
slight turn. The barb of the Cincinnati bass
hook is too small for safety.

As regards leads everything will depend on
the water to be fished, whether still or swift,
the bait used, the fish to be caught and the
angler himself.

For carrying fish there is no contrivance that
compares with the French Willow Basket, No.
2, capacity 12 pounds; fitted with a leather or
cloth shoulder strap, the total cost being one
dollar and fifty cents.

A very serviceable minnow seine made of
strongly woven netting 1-3 inch mesh, 8 feet
long, and rigged with floats and sinkers ready
for use will cost another dollar and a half.

An ordinary, strong piece of cord, a yard or
so long, with a small stick tied to one end is
very useful to string fish upon as soon as caught
in order to tie them out and keep them alive.

The writer has had no great experience with
net fishing because he has rather “looked down”

148 Fishing in North Carolina.

upon it as an ignominious way of taking fish.
It comes in mighty handy, however, on an ex-
tended outing alongside fishy waters. Often
when fish will not take bait, and food becomes
scarce the larder may be replenished by one
night’s judicious netting.

The ordinary gill net is most commonly used
in ponds. It should be of fine flax thread, the
mesh from 1 1-2 to 2 inches square, which will
gill almost any five pound fish, and the nets
should be from 15 to 30 feet long, 4 to 6 feet
deep, without floats or sinkers, and stretched
taut between two stakes firmly driven into the
ground.

Winter is the best season to use the gill net
because fish do not spawn then and terrapins
have gone to sleep. The nets should be fished
two or three times each night and taken out
stretched and dried every two days.

For small streams the double funnel fyke net
is a very greedy catch in spring time when fish
run up stream hunting spawning grounds.
With wings like those on a partridge net, ex-
tending to either bank, it will take every living

Fishing in North Carolina. 149

thing going upstream, either within its big or
little funnel and hold the catch.

In such a net I caught one night a promis-
cuous lot, consisting of suckers, perch catfish,
bass, a muskrat, bull-frog and a turtle. The rat
and turtle were dead, and this is how I found
that a turtle would drown. It and the rat had
evidently gone into the net after a bait of fish,
and overstaying their time could not get to air
quick enough.

The H. H. Keffe Co., 523 Broadway, New
York, is an old and a thoroughly reliable firm
who deal in all kinds of fishing tackle.

A good, strong, strictly first rate and yet in-
expensive knife is a necessity on a fishing trip.
I know of none better than those made by the
Maher & Grosch Co., of Toledo, Ohio. I have
used these knives for years.

CHAPTER XV.

Nortu Carouina TurRTLEs.

I was down at Pather Branch, fishing in the
club pond, several days last week and caught
four turtles. Some of my friends down that
way asked me to write a turtle story; therefore
I will make that subject my ery this beautiful
Sunday morning. Turtle is as much fish as
flesh and fowl, anyhow.

I caught three of these turtles, and a large
water moccasin on hooks set in the manner here-
inafter explained, and baited with cut fish. I
left the snake on the hook.

The biggest turtle I caught while fishing for
perch, near the bottom in 10 feet of water, with
a piece of worm on a small, long shank, roach
hook. He came easily to the top and to the boat,
when I took him in by the tail. He then used
his forepaw and extracted the little hook. They
are very strong and difficult to control out of
the water, but a grain sack makes a satisfactory
prison for him.

Fishing in North Carolina. 151

The mud or snapping (they all snap) turtle
is plentiful in all the rivers, creeks, mill ponds,
and mud puddles in this State. His head is
large and his body seems unable to grow to fit it.

Before the resurrection of education, rennais-
ance in turtle thought, this object was com-
monly called “turkle,” and to this day it is so-
called in some parts of Johnston County.

In midland country it grows to be as big as
30 pounds weight of the same sort of stuff, and
is often caught to weigh as much as 15 pounds;
but as he approaches the mountains where win-
ters are longer and no extra fine is attached, he
is smaller.

In May he explores the land in search of a
soft place to lay eggs; the big she one does this
and she also lays the eggs; and they usually fre-
quent regular routes from water to nest. A
likely spot having been located Mrs. Turtle will
place her right paw firmly on it and with left
fore paw and tail, Archimides around, occa-
sionally stopping long enough to throw out a
spadeful of earth. After many girations the
neck of the hole is completed and the paw be-

152 ishing in North Carolina.

gins to scoop out a bigger opening below for
the nest proper; and the dirt is thrown out,
ditch-digger like, until a chamber has been ar-
ranged big enough and according to specifica-
tions, to accommodate the prospective turtle
family. The interior arrangement somewhat
resembles a government bloekade whiskey still
of copper. The aperture resembles a well-made
crawfish hole in bad lands.

The foremost part of the work being com-
pleted, she backs up and deposits an unbreak-
able egg, which goes through the shute to the
bottom, and then cutely covering the hole with
sticks, leaves or other stuff she wends her way,
turkey hen like, to meet her husband at the
watering place where they bathe, frolic and
feed.

They start out with a real politician's esti-
mate of how many eggs it will take to fill that
hole in the ground, and they keep up the game
until it is chock-a-block, when they heap on
earth, pound it down hard, and leave the mat-
ter to the grannyism of the sun.

As adults they only make use of the oppor-

Fishing in North Carolina. 153

tunities afforded by the moon, and they there-
fore think that the sun should bear some part
of the burden of caring for the family.

Thirty or forty eggs is a very fair turtle out-
put in any one year. These eggs are elliptical
in shape and thick-skinned ; if dented the form
will never be resumed. The still, or Dutch
oven, having baked the eggs until the young
turtles conclude to come to life, it only serves
a few days as a sort of jail wherein the pris-
oners, which then resemble pumpkin bugs, are
protected from snakes and other enemies. Their
shells soon harden, they scratch out of prison
and are ready for the fray of life. They must
look out for number one from the start. Their
own mother does not begin to know them, and
the only protection the daddy would give them
would be in his stomach; in fact, they must be
wary of any living thing whose mouth is bigger
than their own or who has any grudge to
gratify.

The buck turtle has no parental cares to hold
him down, he does not even assist in building
the nursery for the young; in fact, he is as

154 Fishing in North Carolina.

iwuch an independent thing as the man who has
15 or 20 children working in a cotton factory
to gratify his lust for polities, whiskey and to-
bacco.

The terrapin will tumble off a log or rock
into the water the instant a drop of rain touches
him, but a turtle, which is never seen sunning
himself on logs, will bob his head out of the
water m a summer shower, looking as happy as
if he enjoyed the fresh wetting.

He is most readily caught alongside ponds
svon after he has awakened from the winter
sleep, when lean and hungry from having prac-
tically exhausted the supply of surplus fat taken
on the previous fall for winter consumption.
But as the weather gets warm toad frogs go on
the pond, turtle bait becomes plentiful and
casily appropriated. Te fattens and gets frolic-
some and quarrelsome. These quarrels origi-
nate during pairing season, and the selection
of a homestead. Both bucks lose their common
sense, forget the world, flesh and devil and go
in for gore. The combat is a terribly earnest
affair. They do not regard the presence of man

Fishing in North Carolina. 15

Mare

or other beast, but will rush, snap and _ lock.
Little harm is done, however, except when one
gets leg-hold, when it is a case of thunder for
wmpire.

The turtle is in prime condition in autumn,
and the first night after a shower is the best
time to catch him. Night is his chosen provid-
ing time, and after a rain he will patrol the
banks in search of food.

He is too matter of fact to take any artificial
bait, but is easily snared by scenting or sighting
coveted bait. I prefer a live toad frog, hooked
through the skin at the back and suspended from
the tip of a pole or tree limb, so that the frog
may remain on the water, rest or swim, and live
for many hours.

When the turtle is hooked he will have to
swim, rest or drown; and he cannot get loose,
vnless he gets hold of a stump, tree or ground;
wherefrom he can use his forepaws to advantage.

An ordinary fish pole stuck into the bank is
a good enough contrivance. Some people kill
the frog and sink the baited hook in the water,
trusting to scent only; but T want a live bait

156 fishing in North Carolina.

that will call attcution to its locality by a more
agreeable method—sight. Turtle will take any
sort of fish, flesh, fowl, rodent or reptile, alive
or dead; and he is particularly fond of chicken
offal and can scent it upstream hundreds of
yards.

No special size of hooks nor quality of line is
necessary, because a turtle will hardly ever cut
the line, and quickly learns that the hook is un-
manageable.

If one is going to use dead bait I recommend.
a treble hook, concealing all the points in the
bait, as a sure catch.

Various kinds of traps are employed for
eatching turtles. Boxes and barrels arranged
with trap-doors or sides and baited will do the
work well. Turtle will often enter common fish
traps in pursuit of fish. Another trap is made
of a piece of board a foot or more long by eight
inches wide, with a No. 1 tooth-jawed steel trap
fixed on the underside. The trap is baited, a
string is attached and it is anchored wherever
desired.

The turtle is not amusing nor interesting like

=

Fishing in North Carolina. 15

the terrapin, which falls off a log through aver-
sion to rain, and also to amuse man. Nor does
a turtle make a mark of himself on logs, and if
he is seen, it is not his fault. He may take a
nap or may go wrong and astray, but he retains
his commonsense, except in the breeding season.
or unforeseen adversity. Cunning and tempta-
tion may overcome him, but he cannot be bull-
dozed.

Turtles are too plentiful in our waters and
they ought to be got rid of, because so destruc-
tive to big fish.

In 1892, while seining Neuse River, near
Raleigh, I caught a curiosity in the guise of a
soft-shell turtle about five inches across, and
brought it home. Speaking to my friend Col.
Fountleroy Taylor, a great relator, about the
find, he claimed to have discovered this kind of
turtle soon after the Civil War, near Savannah,
Ga., where it was known afterwards as the
leather-back turtle, and became highly esteemed
as a table delicacy. He further said that he
brought three or four of these turtles home,
turned them into Moore’s pond, which broke

158 Fishing in North Carolina.

afterwards, and that there was no doubt this
was one of his turtles on his way back to Georgia
by the water route. On this relation I would
have surrendered my find but for the verified
statement of a common friend, who assured us
that it was a great mistake to suppose that this
turtle was rare in North Carolina. He asserted
the fact, without fear of contradiction, that the
leather-back turtle was so numerous in the Ca-
tawba, above where the Charlotte Observer is
published, that there was a big industry during
the Civil War catching them and shipping the
shells to Richmond, Va., to be used in half-
soling Lee’s army. He said horse leather was
scarce then.

Our terrapin are numerous and large, but
they have no diamonds on their backs and no
meat in their shells; the only flesh that can be
got is from the legs—the interior of the hull
bemg as void as a brickyard without clay.

CHAPTER XVI.

Buu Frocs anp Toap Froes.

Tren years or so ago, when the water-works
pond, near Raleigh, was drawn off for the sup-
posed purpose of abolishing malaria in its neigh-
borhood, I took some friends there to seine for
fish.

Dragging the seine in the mud, we scooped
up a large bull-frog, the body being six or eight
inches long, which had evidently gone into win-
ter quarters deep in the mud. I knew that
turtle and terrapin will winter in mud at the
bottom of ponds and creeks, but I supposed that
frogs, like snakes, wintered in the earth; taking
eare to get below the frost line. I also know
that turtle will drown if netted and kept under
water. But how turtle and bull-frogs can pass
a whole winter in the wet mud beneath water,
without drowning, is yet a matter about which
I am in doubt. They must time themselves
pretty accurately when preparing for the long
sleep, to know just how soon to sink into the

160 Fishing in North Carolina.

mud, and when to become torpid. A change of
weather might fool them, or, perhaps, they are
more weatherwise than man. Of course, they
cannot drown while in the torpid state, but when
warm weather wakes them up they must do some
awfully earnest scratching to get up to air quick-
ly; or did they retain a small supply of wind
after going to sleep? This is a matter I cannot
fathom—posterity may do so—our forefathers,
or heretofores, have not enlightened us.

The frog referred to above was to all intents
and purposes a dead frog; he was not stiff, to
be sure, but cold and motionless, having even
taken the trouble to close his eyes, which is
almost a painful job for a frog to do. Out of
mere curiosity, a thing that pursues me, I re-
solved to keep him for observation; therefore,
I washed the mud off and gently placed him in
my outside coat pocket.

I had forgotten all about my frog until when,
about a mile from home, I was startled at hear-
ing a loud noise down in my pocket. The other
occupants of the carriage being in ignorance of

Fishing in North Carolina. 161

the whereabouts of the frog were awfully
amused. It was a genuine bloody-now. The
heat from my body had warmed Bull—I forth-
with named the frog—into life; and Bull lost no
time in announcing his reappearance in the same
business, if not at the same old stand.

I thought I had found a loud gold mine and
was delighted at the renaissance of Bull. I
took him to my room, kept him warm, petted
him, and proceeded to educate him in graded
school style—gymnastics first and mathematics
afterwards. He was not long in getting over
his stiffness and could jump all right; his eyes
were open big enough, but he seemed unable to
comprehend distance and direction ; which, prob-
ably, fitted him for a night watchman’s job.

Bull was a very clean and otherwise decent
frog, but I would not let him sleep in my bed,
which he seemed very much inclined to do; yet
he had free range of the room.

I could not persuade him to eat worms, and it
being winter time there were no flies; but I gave
myself little worry over his not feeding, since if
he could go a whole winter without grub—he

ll

162 Fishing in North Carolina.

ought easily fast a month or so in this enforced
summer—this extra life.

I went ahead with his mental education with-
out any great concern about developing or direct-
ing his physical powers; and I had the satisfac-
tion in a short while of believing that he under-
stood a thing or two—something, at least, about
sign language, volupuk, or Carnegie, perhaps.
Bull was a very apt pupil and learned without
coercion or reward.

Quite accidentally, I struck upon a method
of teaching him how to count, and I will tell
about that in the next chapter.

But truly, I soon taught him to count up to
twenty, without ever muddling the job. You
have heard of the educated flea? He is a jumper,
too. I could have made Bull count more than
twenty, but I saw no reason for him to strain his
voice, and besides, one does not pay anything
extra for encores.

I would stow Bull away in my coat pocket
and carry him to the Yarborough House, all the
drug stores, and one or two liquor saloons, and
take pleasure upon myself in giving free exhi-

Fishing in North Carolina. 163

bitions of Bull’s ability as a mathematician.
He had not been forced to learn the multiplica-
tion table before he could count correctly, for
fear of stunting his brain. Assembling an
audience, I would produce Bull from his parlor
car, hold him on the palm of my left hand (I
am right-handed) and begin the performance
by saying, “Bull, count three.” The answer
would be, ‘“Bloody-now, bloody-now, bloody-
now!” Whatever number I told him to count,
he would uncomplainingly and correctly do, and
he could not be fooled by skipping about among
the numbers. He would count just as well for
anybody else in the audience, provided he re-
mained in my hand. He was a jealous frog.
He was a great joy to me, and gave much amuse-
ment to human beings of his acquaintance ; and
really, he knew at least two hundred people in
Raleigh.

I fully proposed teaching Bull much more,
so that he could get better acquainted with man-
kind ; indeed, I had started him right so that he
would know whether or not he was being cheated
in the number of worms he traded for. He, of

164 Fishing in North Carolina.

course, needed no singing lessons, being a natu-
ral born noise-maker, and I was just on the
point of teaching him the American or parrot
language, when he died. After this affectionate
relationship with a bull-frog, I could never again
bring my stomach and conscience into sufficient-
ly close friendship to eat frog legs.

I nearly forgot to tell how I persuaded that
frog to count: Holding him, as stated, in the
palm of my hand, every time I gently touched
him underneath his throat he would say “Bull-
lumb,” and nobody could detect the movement
of my finger.

Whether one captured in summer time would
act so intelligently, or act at all, I leave to the
reader to investigate.

Bull-frogs are killed at night by placing a
lighted lantern in the bow of a small boat, and
paddling very slowly and as silently as possible,
close along the banks of ponds and rivers. They
become interested in the light, indeed, are fas-
cinated with it; will swim out to examine it,
when, by a deft, flat smack with a paddle the
frog may be stunned. However, it must be got

Fishing in North Carolina. 165

into the boat quickly, as otherwise it will sink,
or recover and escape.

In the day time they may be shot with a small
bore rifle, while sitting and philosophising in
cool, shady, dark places along the banks; or else
killed with frog-spears, made for the purpose.

I once caught a large one while fishing from
the bank for bass. Having exhausted my min-
now supply, without success, and it being nearly
dark, I decided to try a lob of angle worms. I
put several on the hook so that heads and tails
could play well; but, getting no strike, lifted
my hook to quit fishing, and when the bait
reached the top of the water something wanted
it bad. For several minutes I had the liveliest
sort of a time, and when I landed my fish it was
a great big bull-frog.

I am not so well acquainted with toad-frogs,
although I have owned hundreds of them. They
are also interesting and charming creatures,
although their personal appearance is not invit-
ing.

Everybody knows that they sing; it is only a
croak when one is alone, like all other bachelors ;

166 Fishing in North Carolina.

and the female has a softer voice than the male,
otherwise, it is difficult to distinguish the boss
from the servant. What person does not enjoy
a camp meeting of frogs in the country on a hot
stunmer night ?

I have met with a great many toads in my
rambles after turtles; because I found them to
be pate de foi gras and caviar, too, for the turtle.
In truth, I established a market for toads in the
little town of Angier, N. C., where the boys
would bring them to me in boxes, buckets and
pockets; at so much per dozen. The market
price would vary according to supply and de-
mand. It isa mistake about toads causing warts
—they do nothing of the kind, and are perfectly
harmless.

J got over five hundred on hand at one time,
and kept them together in a half-hogshead
whence they escaped by linking together, like
the play-soldiers at San Juan Hill. and sealing
the side of the tub.

I could feed them all right on flies and
worms; and it was as amusing to see them eat
as it is to observe in awe a graduate of one of

Fishing in North Carolina. 167

our athletic colleges handle a knife at the dinner
table.

I tried the frogs with shot and became con-
vinced that the humorist unwittingly lied when
he told the story about loading a frog with shot
in order to win a race. The frog will not take
lead. He cannot do so because of the shape of
his tongue—the end of which is back-forked.
He does not use his mouth to catch food, but
only as a guard-house until the stomach is ready
for the trial. In other words, the tongue acts as
constable, the mouth is the jail, and the stomach
is the judge and beneficiary. The frog’s tongue
is a very slender ligament about two inches in
length, and is shaped like the pointed end of a
fish-hook with the bard which brings the object
home.

Covered with saliva, he darts this tongue out
so quickly that the eye can hardly see it, hits a
fly and runs him in; winks wisely and is ready
for another fly. To be surrounded by a dozen
toads, with worms wriggling and crippled flies
hopping, is greater amusement than a revival
affords, and is more entertaining than the best
cate ta, ea, CIPCUB. >

168 Fishing in North Carolina.

I spent more than two hours a day for a
month, watching my frog subjects eat. They
are cute creatures. I would eatch a lot of horse-
flies, remove one wing, and taking several frogs,
get down on the ground among them and turn a
fly loose. A frog would notice the fly hopping,
suddenly turn his head sideways and look at the
fly with that eye, and then quickly turn the other
eye upon the fly to verify the vision; make up
his mind as a business proposition, put his ton-
gue to work and in goes the fly. He hardly ever
missed an opportunity. Of course, any stray
fly that lit near enough would go the same way.

Then again, I would take a small angle worm,
place it before a frog, and the same quick, comi-
cal shake of the head would mean good-bye
worm. But whether the tongue alone brought
the worm to the mouth I never did verify; yet,
as soon as the worm got there the frog would
take hold of it with both forefeet or hands and
push it into his mouth, much like a squirrel sit-
ting on its haunches eats a nut, or a gentleman
gnaws green corn off a cob.

When I put out a big worm, the frog would

Fishing in North Carolina. 169

do his level best to get it into the guard-house,
and would try again and again, only giving it
up as a bad job after effort became hopeless.

The toad-frog is a harmless creature, travel-
ing chiefly at night, or coming out of its hiding
place after showers are over, in search of small
insects. Doctors are thinking, one hundred
years from now, of employing the frog in its
own habitat, stagnant pools, to catch mosquitoes
aud other germ toters—an occupation the frog
has been engaged in on its own account during
the past 9,437 years, with no humanitarian pur-
pese, possibly, yet for the stomach’s sake.

During the summer the toad stays under cover
in sunlight, and he goes into earth to spend the
winter. It is enormously prolific, and while I
have often wondered why so few reappear the
next spring, yet like the house-fly, nature pro-
vides enough of them to keep the stock at or
above par.

As I hinted, it is the hest sort of a turtle bait,
but I am now writing on the side of the frog.
While the turtle is cruel, and has an awful grip,
yet he is put here for some purpose; he kills and

170 Fishing in North Carolina.

eats more snakes than man kills, and yet the
snake has a purpose here also—but I must stop.

The frog has no scales, and he is shaped some-
what different from his birth-mark or tadpole
stage. It is born in water and takes in air
through gills—fish-like.

CHAPTER XVII.

Barts, Etc.

Tue pot-bellied top-minnow, resembling the
tadpole in action, is a worthless bait because it
dies as soon as put on a hook; but it is plentiful
in slow-running streams and stagnant pools near
the coast, and is useful only for other fish to
feed upon. It is one of the most interesting as
well as worthless of the small fishes. It is a
curiosity only because, like the shark, it brings
forth its young alive—from thirty to forty at a
time—and will devour its own young as soon
as born. It, however, has several broods a year;
is at home in swamps, rice ditches and sluggish
creeks, where it catches mosquitoes and other
insects.

% % *

The bowfin or grindle is also a permanent
inhabitant of our sluggish and stagnant waters.
Tt reaches a weight of twelve pounds, resembles
a catfish somewhat, pulls like an eel, and is
awfully voracious, and cruel, as well as being

172 Fishing in North Carolina.

totally unfit to cat, It is the most villainous-
looking fish [ ever saw.

A very pretty and practical minnow or perch
float is readily made of a goose quill cut off an
inch in the feather and the line run through
guides on each end of the float.

Remember, that the round-branch minnow
is the very best bait for bass. The stone-roller
is not a bait, because fish will not take it.

“oO

I merely suggest the following baits as appro-
priate for the different purposes, and important
in the order given:

Fishing in North Carolina. 173

174 Fishing in North Carolina.

BASS.
Round minnows. Lob of angle worms.
Other minnows. Grasshoppers.
Small pike. Axtificial flies.
Small catfish. Artificial bugs.
Crawfish. Buell spinner.
Frogs. Buck-tail bob.

* * *

MOUNTAIN TROUT.

Artificial flies. Grasshoppers.
Angle worms.

* * *%

PIKE AND JACK.
Minnows. Frogs.
Anything moving (alive or dead).

% oe x

PERCH,
Small minnows. Flat-head worms.
Grasshoppers. Grub worms.
Peeled crawfish, Angle worms.

Wasp maggots. Cut fish.

Fishing in North Carolina. 175

CATFISH AND EELS.

Angle worms. Grasshoppers.
Grub worms. Anything.

* * *

SUCKERS.

Cornmeal dough mixed with cotton.
Angle worms.

* * *

TURTLE.

Live frogs and toads. Dead fish or eel.
Dead frogs and toads. Fowl.
Live minnows. Flesh.

Salt herring.

* %*+

I am under obligations to Mr. H. T. Brimley,
of the North Carolina State Museum, for valu-
able assistance given me in getting up this book.
I also give thanks to the Outing Magazine for
the use of the chapter on “Worm Fishing for
Brook Trout,” by Mr. Louis Rhead, which ap-
peared in Outing, in 1906.

176 Fishing in North Carolina.

I have used, copiously, excerpts from that
most excellent book entitled “The Fishes of
North Carolina,” by Dr. Hugh M. Smith, Dep-
uty Commissioner of Fisheries, Washington,
D. C. He kindly permitted me the use of the
plates for the illustrations herein, as well as the
material matter so freely selected from the afore-
said book.

* oF *

There is as much reason why the youths of
our country should learn as much as possible
about fish life—food and fun—as there is that
they should study birds, bugs, and botany, chief-
ly of interest to the rich and curious.

Encourage the innocent pastime of fishing in
the boy’s mind and save trouble. Manliness will
come with the love of the sport; untouched by
cruel thoughts.

And the longer a man lives the better he will
love fishing, the more he will respect Nature,
and, perhaps, mankind also.

[THE END. ]