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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND

MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/bassesfreshwaterOOharrrich

PE BASSES
I^RESH-WATER^.

A Leap for Freedom

AMt'

THE BASSES
FRESH-WATER
AND MARINE

BYWILUAMCp^RIS
SiTARLETONH^EAN
ED1TED& ILLUSTRATED
BY LOUIS RHEAD

^Hf", - - —

FREDERICK- ASTOKESCOMPANY- NEW-YORK

Copyright, 1905
By Frederick A. Stokes Compant

All righis reserved

Published in December, 1905

TnXIYEBSITT PBESS, CAHBBIDGB, U. S. A.

A3

PREFACE

A FEW lines only are necessary to explain
the object with which this volume on the
Basses is put forth. It is intended as a
^ companion and sequel to the Editor's book
on Brook Trout, which from all sources has received
a most kindly and flattering reception — a favor he
would bespeak for the present issue.

The shortcomings of the previous work have, it
is hoped, been obviated in this volume. All the
matter has been specially written for it, and a
greater number of colored pictures, reproduced by
better and later methods, have been used. The main
object has been to supply readers with complete
information, not only how, when, and where to fish
for bass, but also to enable them to find "poetic
descriptions, entertaining accounts, and pleasing
vicissitudes of angling," so that they may catch a
glimpse, if possible, of the glamour and light of
nature-study, without which half the delight in fish-
ing would be lost.

So far, little or nothing has been said concerning

PREFACE

the marine basses, especially that king of marine
game-fish, the striped bass ; and the Editor is fortu-
nate in securing for this subject such a writer as
Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, whose practical angling skill,
combined with his well-known scientific knowledge,
furnishes the reader with complete information on
marine fishing.

It has been thought best to have the matter re-
lating to the fresh-water basses entirely from the
pen of one author, and that concerning the marine
basses from another, making possible a more com-
plete and satisfactory result. The late William C.
Harris's contribution was his last work, his closing
chapters having been finished in Saint Vincent's
Hospital. Although most of his writings were on
trout and trout-fishing, he preferred, and spent
many years of his later life in fly-fishing for black
bass, and he often expressed a desire to have the
chance of writing a complete book on the bass (a
subject on which none were more capable). This
volume gave him the opportunity in the plenitude
of his powers, and he produced what he himself
considered the best work of his life. His idea of
introducing three anglers, each with a different
mode of capture, to tell in their own way how best
to angle for the gamy bass, is a happy one, which
he had in mind years ago.

As the illustrations of flies for the book on
Brook Trout were prepared by an expert, a similar

PREFACE

collection of bass flies has been tied and arranged
especially for this work.

The publishers' devotion to the art of angling can
be inferred from the care bestowed on all the little
details which only a labor of love can inspire, and
which makes beauty and usefulness join hands.

Should " The Basses " meet with an encouraging
success, it will be followed by a series of works on
angling, under the title of " A Library of Rod and
Reel." This will contain volumes individually dis-
tinctive, though uniform in size and character, and
their titles will be announced in due course.

LOUIS RHEAD

vu

CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface v

List of Illustrations xi

Introduction. By Tarleton H. Bean xiii

The Song of the Bass. By Alice Calhoun Haines . . xxiii

The Fresh-water Basses. By William C. Harris . . 1

The Habits of the Black Bass 11

Qualities of the Black Bass 18

Feeding-habits of the Black Bass 26

Bait-fishing for Black Bass 81

Baits for Black Bass 40

In the Matter of Flies 48

The Black Bass and the Trout compared . . 53

The Minor Basses (Black Bass Family) ... 67
Fly-fishing for Black Bass in the Schuylkill

River. By William C. Harris 75

Bass in the Beaverkill. By Louis Rhead . . . . 117

The Choice of Flies By Louis Rhead 129

Notes on the Cooking of Bass. By Louis Rhead . . 143

ix

CONTENTS

PAGE

Artificial Lures for Black Bass. By James A.

Cruikshank 153

The Marine Basses. By Tarleton H. Bean . . . . 165

The Striped Bass 167

The White Bass 212

The White Perch 218

The Yellow Bass 228

The Sea-bass

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Leap for Freedom (Colored plate) Frontispiece

The Father of Anglers Facing page xvi

Large-mouthed Black Bass " 8

The best Time for Bass (Photogravure) ... " 22

Trolling with live Bait « 36

Fishing with Lampreys in deep Water ... '' 42

Lake Fishing " 48

Fishing for Black Bass in the St. Lawrence

(Colored plate) " 54

Playing the Black Bass " 62

Removing the Hook " 70

Fact and Fiction " 84

Trolling for Bass in Maine (Colored plate) . . '' 90

Landing '' 98

An Enthusiast '' 108

Casting the Fly " 124

Bass Flies (Colored plate) " 134

Maine Guides preparing Lunch " 148

xi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Bass Lures now in Use Facing page 158

Landing a Striped Bass at Dawn (Colored plate) " 178

Fishing from a Stand " 200

Striped Bass Fishing on the New England Coast " 210

Striped Bass "\

Sea-Bass I (Colored plate) . " 222

Small-mouthed Black Bass J

A running Fight « 234

3di

INTRODUCTION

ANEW book upon the Basses is the grati-
fying announcement of this introductory
_ chapter. What memories will crowd be-
fore the reader at the mere mention of
the name ! It must have occurred to every one who
has examined the index to any general work upon
our fishes that the basses in myriad forms have a
wide circle of acquaintances, and they certainly
may claim a world of devoted friends.

From Manitoba and the St. Lawrence on the
north, through the Great Lakes region, the entire
extent of the Mississippi basin, and in rivers flow-
ing from both slopes of the Alleghanies, either as
natives or by artificial introduction, the fresh- water
forms are found in abundance. Men know them
under scores of names, and prize them none the
less for the endless nomenclature due chiefly to
variations of color and form and peculiarities of
habit.

The ocean has its own representatives no less

INTRODUCTION

favorably and widely known; for the giant of the
race, the richest prize of the angler on our eastern
coast, has been carried, as a tribute of friendship,
to the Pacific, and has heartily entered into the
spirit of its transportation by adopting its new
environment and increasing beyond all expectation.
We have sometimes feared that the striped bass
is a vanishing element of our angling resources;
but Californians are just beginning to enjoy what
appears to be a rapidly growing source of supply,
thanks to the energy and skill of modern fish-
culture, and to the wonderful fitness of the western
ocean for the new life consigned to its keeping.

The fresh-water basses are more numerous than
the marine forms, but they are pigmies in size
compared with the striped bass. It is claimed that
the large-mouthed black bass attains a weight of
twenty-five pounds in Florida; but its average
weight, even in the South, which furnishes condi-
tions most favorable to its growth, does not ex-
ceed five pounds. The small-mouthed black bass
seldom exceeds eight pounds in weight and aver-
ages scarcely more than two and a half pounds.
The sea-bass is the smallest of the series, for it
reaches a maximum of only six pounds, and this
is attained on its offshore feeding-grounds where
suitable " banks," rocks, or sunken wrecks occur
in deep water.

The striped bass is one of the largest, if not

INTRODUCTION

the largest, game-fish that ascends rivers from the
sea. It is doubtful if even the king-salmon of the
Pacific equals it in size. The early writers upon
New York fishes made particular mention of this
fish, which was remarkable for its size and its ex-
cellent qualities for the table. Dr. Mitchill saw a
dozen at a time, weighing fifty pounds each, in
New York market nearly a century ago. Dr.
James Mease published an interesting account of
the bass about the same time, in which he referred
to individuals weighing sixty pounds. Dr. Cape-
hart took one at Avoca, N. C, scahng ninety-five
pounds; but the largest recorded specimen was
said to weigh one hundred and twelve pounds.

On the Pacific coast it has not yet demonstrated
its full limit of growth, and we seldom hear of
one exceeding forty pounds ; but there is no doubt
that history will repeat itself in those prolific waters.
This bass has a long lease of life if we may judge
from experience in the New York Aquarium, where
many of its kind have flourished in captivity for
eleven years or longer.

The striped bass has several smaller relatives, the
white bass and the yellow bass of the fresh waters,
and the white perch of the salt and brackish waters
of the Atlantic coast. All of these are game-fish
with good food qualities. The white bass has been
pronounced almost as good for the table as the
black bass. In European seas there is a fish which

INTRODUCTION

resembles the striped bass pretty closely, but with-
out stripes. It is a highly prized food-fish, espe-
cially at the summer resorts on the north coast of
France.

Anglers who are familiar with the basses need
no argument to convince them of their many vir-
tues. They are all beautiful and shapely fish, they
furnish endless sport, and fill an important place
in contributing to the food supply. Their flesh
is firm, flaky, and toothsome. The reason is not
far to seek, for they subsist upon smaller fish,
crustaceans, shell-fish, and other delicacies. In the
fresh waters they delight in minnows, crayfish,
frogs, and insects and their larvse. In the ocean
they find ample supplies of alewives, killies, silver-
sides, anchovies, crabs, squid, clams, and mussels.
Is it surprising that they rank among the very
choicest in our markets and among the best trophies
of the angler's skill?

The records of the United States Fisheries Bu-
reau show that it cost less than $5,000 to transplant
shad and striped bass to the Pacific coast, and that
the value of the catch of these two fish to the end
of 1904 was $955,000, — a very good return for
the investment and a clear illustration of the money
value of these two favorite fishes. The striped
bass formed a very large share of this total, if we
may judge from recent accounts of the fishing.
At San Antonio Slough, for example, thirty miles

xvi

The Father of Anglers

INTRODUCTION

from San Francisco, ten anglers caught 1,200
pounds of bass on a single tide. One of the
party said:

" I never saw the like ; they fill the water Hke a drove of
sheep. It is dangerous to drive them inshore in shallow
water with small boats. . . . Driven to the hmit, they
turned to seek deeper water, and in their attempts to
escape many jumped upon the banks and some into the
boats. . . . We had to finally seek deep water for safety, —
put to ignominious flight by a horde of striped bass."

The striped-bass angler on the Atlantic coast is
never obliged to apologize for such a commercial
catch, as the fish are nowhere plentiful enough to
make it possible; but the bass are not always as
far away from New York waters as one might
suppose, and the initiated know where some of
them are to be foim^d even in the winter months.

It is not within the province of this chapter to
discuss fishing-grounds and modes of capture of
the fresh- water basses: all such topics and more
will be handled in his own inimitable style by
Mr. William C. Harris, whose name is a sufficient
introduction for anything he proposes to write.
Neither is it intended to dwell upon the beauties
of form, color, and motion to be observed in per-
fection among the basses: Mr. Rhead will portray
these attributes with the same fidelity and affection
which characterized his recent work upon that fairy

INTRODUCTION

among game-fishes, the Brook Trout. There are
some characteristic features, however, about the
basses, which enhance the interest attached to their
study, and which should not be omitted from this
prehminary sketch. The marine basses and their
fresh-water aUies will be presented by the author
of this Introduction.

The striped bass, huge as it is, starts from a
very small beginning: before fertilization its egg
is smaller than that of the shad, increases greatly
in size after fertilization, and changes from a beau-
tiful light green to a pale color. Spawning takes
place from April to June, either in the rivers or
in brackish waters of bays and sounds. The num-
ber of eggs is enormous, and yet our waters are
nowhere overstocked with the fish, showing that
there are many natural as well as artificial checks
upon their undue increase. The spawning-grounds
in North CaroUna have been located, and the con-
ditions necessary to successful artificial hatching
are understood. There is no reason why this noble
fish should not be started at least on the way to
multiplication; and, unless unforeseen natural ob-
stacles intervene, fish-culture should soon score
another brilliant success.

The sea-bass, sometimes called blackfish, or
black sea-bass in New York, black Will in the
Middle States, black perch in Massachusetts, and
rock-bass at New Bedford, ranges along the coast

INTRODUCTION

from Massachusetts to Florida. It reaches a lengtii
of eighteen inches and a maximum weight of six
pounds, and is considered one of the valuable food-
fishes. It has a voracious appetite and takes the
hook with great freedom and regularity. Shrimp,
crabs, sea-worms, squid, and small fishes form part
of its food. Around Cape Cod the sea-bass spawns
in June. The egg is one twenty-sixth of an inch
in diameter and hatches in five days in water of
59° or 60° F. The young frequent the channels
and shallow bays and are often taken in eel-pots.
A narrow brown stripe along the middle of the
side is a distinguishing mark. The rate of growth
is rapid.

Large sea-bass love the vicinity of sunken wrecks
and offshore banks where the bottom is rocky.
In the breeding-season the adult male is gor-
geously colored and wears a great fleshy hump
on the nape. There is a decided tendency toward
sluggishness among the big ones, and a fondness
for hiding in rock crevices in imitation of the
tautog.

The large-mouthed black bass is one of the most
voracious of the fresh-water fishes, and with its
voracity is combined a swiftness of motion which
brings disaster to its prey. It feeds both at the
surface and on the bottom, varying its diet with
small fishes of all kinds, not excepting its own
offspring, frogs, insects and their larvas, and any

xix

INTRODUCTION

other water animals of proper size. In one of the
Government's fish-ponds at Washington, D. C,
some years ago, about 100,000 young bass of this
kind were being reared artificially. Before these
fish were removed in the fall, their number had
been reduced by cannibalism to about 30,000. The
majority of the young weighed about two or three
ounces, but 500 of them weighed nearly half a
pound each. When placed in an aquarium, a bass
of four and a half inches devoured seven others
nearly as large as itself in one week. So much
for cannibalism, and so much by way of explana-
tion of the game qualities of the large-mouthed
bass.

This bass spawns from April, or earlier, to July.
During incubation the eggs adhere to stones in
nests prepared by the adults, and are zealously
guarded from enemies. Hatching takes place in
one week or two weeks according to the tempera-
ture of the water. The young remain in the nests
for a week or ten days. At the age of two weeks
they measure about three quarters of an inch in
length. The parents take excellent care of the
young as long as they continue to swarm together,
but as soon as they begin to separate and seek inde-
pendence they are more likely to be devoured by
their parents than by an outside enemy.

The hibernation which takes place in cold weather
has also been observed in aquarium captives, which

XX

INTRODUCTION

were known to decline food entirely in the winter.
In summer the fish loves to he under overhanging
and brush-covered banks or concealed among the
water-plants ready to pounce upon its prey.

The small-mouthed black bass is a lover of clear,
pure, swift streams from the upper parts of the
St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes region
through the basin of the Mississippi. East of the
Alleghanies it is native to the head waters of the
Ocmulgee and the Chattahoochee. North of these
streams it has been introduced almost everywhere.
It has been transplanted to Western States, to
England, France, Germany, and Finland, — per-
haps without success in the last-named country.
This is very good evidence of the esteem in which
the small-mouthed bass is held. There is no more
popular fish in our fresh waters.

This bass, like its large-mouthed relative, is a
nest-builder. Spawning occurs from March to
July. The hatching occupies from seven to four-
teen days. The eggs are very small and very
adhesive; they are bound together in bands or
ribbons and adhere to the stones of which the nest
is constructed. A single female will yield from
2,000 to 10,000 eggs, which vary from 80,000 to
100,000 to the quart. The nest and young are
very carefully protected by both parents until the
young cease swarming, after which the adults are
not fit company for their own children, because

INTRODUCTION

they devour them as readily as they would any
other little fish.

At the age of three to five days the young are
almost colorless, and so small that they can scarcely
be seen; their length is only about a quarter of an
inch. When about three or four months old their
bodies are dull yellowish green, the sides mottled
with darker spots which are sometimes arranged
in short vertical bars. The tail-fin is yellowish at
the base, and bears a broad black band in its middle
portion and a bright whitish margin behind.

The adults feed upon crayfish, frogs, insects and
their larvae, minnows, and other aquatic creatures.
They swim in schools and often seek the shelter
of large rocks or sunken logs. Hibernation takes
place in winter, as usual with their race.

With these fragmentary glimpses into the life
and home of a coterie of game-fishes which stands
unexcelled in the esteem of all good fishermen, the
reader may confidently pass to the real purpose of
this book, which is to remind the angler of happy
days on limpid streams or rock-bound ocean shores,
breathing pure air, revelling in warm sunshine,
cheered by birds' songs, and electrified by the inde-
finable thrill which foretells glorious victory over
a noble foe.

TARLETON H. BEAN

xxii

THE SONG OF THE BASS

When summer nights are hard to bear,

And dog-days come again ;
When fetid grows the city air.

And fagged the weary brain;
Then free ye from the stifled throng, —

With rod and reel away
To where bright rivers rush along

''Mid flash of rainbow spray!

In limpid lakes the lilies blow,

Thovgh breathless be the town;
On woodland banks wild roses glow.

And silver thistle-down
Caught lightly on the placid stream

Like goblin craft drift by ;
While here and there more svhtle gleam

Intrigues the watchful eye.

Fresh fern a-plenty for his creel,

A snack within the shade,
A fragrant pipe, a singing reel; —

The angler'' s day is made!
And some the lordly salmon praise.

And some the lusty trout;
To many men are many ways

Of fishing, without doubt.

THE SONG OF THE BASS

To many men are many minds

(Who would dispute or hlam^?)^
And muny boasts of many kinds.

Yet this my modest claim:
In rocky lair the Bass is found.

Where the swirling eddy dims.
Inch for inch and pound for pound,

The gamest fish that swiimsl

A doughty knight vn armor bright.

No gage will he let pass.
The artfid fiy, the helgramite.

Young frog from swampy grass.
He 7/ gorge ; then, turning, dare his foe

To equal fight and free, —
Or salt, or fresh, while waters flow.

No bolder fish than he.

He never skulks, he never sulks.

Above, below the flood.
With valiant lunge and prismy plunge.

His challenge he 11 make good.
Till every cunning trick is tried, —

Ye gods ! we 7/ haul him in.
By gaff and net snatched from the tide,

A vanquished paladin !

The night-moth and the dragonfly
No more need fear his leap;

No more on balanced fin he 7/ lie
Guarding his castle-keep.

THE SONG OF THE BASS

To many hards are many lays.

Without dispute or dovbt ;
And some the lordly salmon praise.

And some the lusty trout.

Yet in discourtesy to none.

With due respect to all.
When hotly beats the August sun.

And city pleasures pall.
The Bass, in river, bay, or sound,
"^ My loyal mu^e stiH hymns.
Inch for inch and pound for pound.

The gamest fish that swims.

ALICE CALHOUN HAINES

The Study of Fishes

DURING the last quarter of a century
there has evidently been among anglers
an increasing and cumulative desire
to follow their pastime with improved
equipments for capture, constructed on more
scientific principles, and more deceptive to the
fishes they wish to basket. Equally important and
much more encouraging to the educated class of
Waltonians is the increasing interest taken by the
craft at large in acquiring knowledge of the habits
and life-histories of the fish they seek to lure. But
unfortunately at the threshold of this knowledge
there is a drawback to its acquirement, in that they
are compelled, in the case of many game-fishes, to
learn by rote, as it were, their technical nomencla-

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

ture (often given in the dead languages) and the
scientific classification laid down in the complicated
text-books of the scientists, so that they may be
able to differentiate their favorite fishes and assign
them to the correct family or species.

This condition will be better understood when it
is stated that ichthyologists tell us that —

The black bass is not a bass — it is a sunfish.
The white perch is not a perch — it is a bass.
The rock-bass is not a bass — it is a sunfish.
The wall-eyed pike is not a pike — it is a perch, —

— and so on almost without limit.

These statements are maintained in the face of
the fact that in every section of the country the
first names above stated are those given to the fish
by fishermen, many of whom know no other ap-
pellatives for them. Again, the great number of
local and popular names applied to one and the
same fish in various parts of the United States
adds to the confusion in the identification of
species. Thus the big-mouthed black bass of
Louisiana, among its many other Southern names,
is there known as the " green trout," while in
Virginia it is called a "chub"; and the familiar
wall-eyed pike or pike-perch is known in Penn-
sylvania and other waters as " salmon."

THE F R E S H-W ATER BASSES

The Fresh-Water Basses

From the above it will be seen how important
it is that the student angler, in the early stages
of his progress, should have a clear understanding
of the proper classification of the basses, and a
sufficient knowledge of the anatomical differences
between the fishes of the family, to distinguish one
from the other when boated or grassed by his rod.
The methods by which this is done will be ex-
plained under the separate captions, designating
each fish then under treatment. In the mean time
the angler should make himself thoroughly fa-
mihar with the following list, in which are desig-
nated all the fishes popularly classed as " basses "
and scientifically known as " sunfishes," bearing in
mind that the single popular name of each fish
has many multiples in nearly every section where
it has its habitat.

The fresh-water basses, then, popularly so called,
but actually members of the family Centrarchidce,
the sunfishes, include the small-mouthed black bass
— Micropterus dolomiei; the large-mouthed black
bass — Micropterus salmoides; the rock-bass —
Ambloplites rupestris; the strawberry-bass (two
forms) — Pomooois sparoides and P. annularis;
and the warmouth bass — Chcenohryttus gulosus.

The true fresh-water basses that are angled for,
and which belong strictly to the bass family —

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Serranidce — are only three in number: the white
bass — Roccus chrysops; the yellow bass — Mo-
rone interrupta; and the white perch — Morone
americana.

The Black Basses

Owing to the almost phenomenal interest taken
in fish-culture by the people and by our state and
national governments, entailing an annual expendi-
ture equal to the gross appropriations for fish-
culture by all other nations, nearly every pond and
stream of sufficient area, purity, and depth, has
been stocked with either the small-mouthed or
large-mouthed black bass. Hence this great game-
fish may be said to be living and thriving at the
back door of nearly every fisherman resident in
the country districts.

About three hundred years ago black bass were
found by the Spaniards in the waters of Florida,
and in 1721 the Jesuit missionaries caught them
in several Canadian lakes. During the early years
of the nineteenth century a specimen black bass
was sent from the United States to the French
ichthyologist Lacepede, who described it and gave
it the generic name Micropterus, the literal mean-
ing of which is " small fin." This was, however,
a misnomer, because the fish sent to Paris had a
mutilated dorsal fin, some of the rays of which

THE F R E S H-W ATER BASSES

were broken off, thus misleading the ichthyologist.
Dr. Henshall tells us that this old specimen is pre-
served in the Museum of Natural History in
Paris, and that from a personal .examination he
found it to be about a pound in weight, a foot
in length, and remarkably well preserved.

The black bass is indigenous in waters from
"Lake Champlain westward to Manitoba, and
southward on both sides of the mountains from
James River, Virginia, to South CaroHna," in
the waters of the Gulf States, and through-
out the Mississippi valley. It has been success-
fully and widely introduced into many waters near
to and far from its original habitat, and American
anglers may be proud that they have a native
game-fish which is said to be almost ubiquitous in
our waters, and which, for its size, has no equal
on the rod for sturdy resistance and intelligent
resources to escape capture.

Species

There are but two species of black bass, — the
large-mouthed, Micropterus dolomiei, and the small-
mouthed, Micropterus salmoides. Both frequently
inhabit the same waters, but either form can be
easily recognized if the angler will expand to the
utmost limit the jaws of the fish he has caught.

The large-mouth of five pounds' weight will

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

show a swallowing-capacity about equal to engulf-
ing the doubled fist of a five-year-old boy, and
the small-mouth of the* same weight will exhibit the
usual gullet of other scaled fish of similar size.
So much to guide at first sight of the captured
bass; but, if the fish are biting freely, anglers,
as a rule, are so ardent in their sport that classifi-
cation will not be a factor of enjoyment of the
outing. But around the camp-fire or during the
" nooning " the fact will doubtless be noticed and
discussed that the eye of the small-mouthed black
bass is posterior to the angle of the jaws, and that
the eye of the big-mouthed species is in front of
their posterior termination. It will also be ob-
served that there are only ten rows of scales on
the cheek of the latter, and about seventeen on that
of the small-mouth.

Coloration

The coloration of the black basses varies in nearly
every water in which they are found, and this con-
trast is sometimes so marked' as to create in the
minds of many anglers a doubt of the species. In
fact, specimens have been taken, particularly from
Greenwood Lake, N. Y., which were of a deep
yellow color over the entire body. To add to the
perplexity, an occasional fish in this lake, which is
inhabited by both kinds, partakes of the physical

I

THE F R E S H-W ATER BASSES

markings of the opposite species, leading many
anglers to believe that the two ure interbreeding
in that water, — a condition not beyond possibiUty
and calling for close investigation. About ten
years ago I personally examined a three-pound
large-mouthed black bass caught in Greenwood
Lake, the eye of which was on a vertical line with
the angle of the jaws. The ten scales on the
cheek, however, determined its species and settled
all doubt.

The small-mouthed black bass in most waters
has a bronze lustre which mellows and spreads over
the golden green above the lateral line, with here
and there dark blotches, particularly on the head.
!rhree bronze bands radiate from the eye across
the cheek and gill-covers, and the belly is creamy
white, — in some waters of a general pepper-and-
salt coloration. As the smaU-mouth advances in
age the pigments lose their strength and the fish
becomes of a uniform dead green with a silvery
lustre.

The large-mouth is of "a dark green color
above and greenish silvery on the sides and be-
low." (In this connection note the yellowish col-
oration of the Greenwood Lake bass.) Jordan
and Evermann tell us that the blackish blotches
along the lateral line, so characteristic of the large-
mouthed species, "break up and grow fainter"
as they grow older. I have caught many of this

9

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

form of black bass, weighing from three to five
pounds each, and failed to recognize any breaking-
up of this distinct but irregular and ugly blotchy
coloration along the median line. There is, how-
ever, hardly a limit to be placed upon the different
colorations, even of the same species, and some-
times even of those inhabiting the same waters.
The factors producing these variations of color
are the nature of the bottoms, light or dark, weedy
or rocky; the character of the stream, shaded or
otherwise; and the food most abundant. If the
latter consists chiefly of crustaceans, the color of
the black bass will, as in the case of the trout,
become richer and darker. Changes of color in
the black bass, as also in the trout, have been seen
to occur when the fish moves from one part of
the stream to another and remains there a short
time under new physical conditions.

10

THE HABITS OF THE BLACK BASS

FEW fish thrive in such extremes of tem-
perature as the black bass, but sudden
changes are apt to be fatal to both
species. The large-mouth will Uve in
conditions of water, under high temperature and
in stagnant ponds, which ordinarily would be death
to all other forms of aquatic life except that of
the lowest order. Yet with this fact before them
there are some people — anglers, forsooth — who
insist that in point of gameness and as a food-
fish the big- jawed fellow is equal to the acrobatic
small-mouth in running water!

Reproduction

The black bass is endowed with an emotional
quality which very closely approaches parental
affection. While the salmon, the trout, and other
salmonids, as well as most other fishes, leave their
eggs, as soon as deposited, to the ravages of the
minnow, eel, catfish, and other ravenous spawn-
eaters, the parent bass guards the nest with vigi-
lance, and, when the young are hatched, hovers

11

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

around them with the care and motherly solicitude
displayed by a hen toward her brood of chicks.
But few fishes have this " instinct," which is a con-
venient word to apply to such a quality, although
" hereditary force of reason " or " emotion " would
seem to express it more forcibly.

The eggs of the black bass cannot be artificially
fertilized ; they can be stripped only with great diffi-
culty, and the male must be killed in order to obtain
the milt. It is therefore fortunate that the natural
increase of the species, when left to their own re-
sources and the happy development of parental
care of their young, has been found sufficient to
stock waters of any size with this noble game-
fish.

The black bass prepares a modest nuptial bed
on a gravel, rock, sand, or clay bottom, and in some
waters (Greenwood Lake particularly) the nests
and young have been seen on the tops of submerged
tree-stumps. It is a mooted question as to whether
the male or the female prepares the nest. The
similarity in the appearance of both sexes would
seem to account for the different opinions of fish-
culturists on this subject, although the female fish,
in her gravid condition, shows, to a more or less
degree, a distension of the abdomen. As the
spawning-season approaches, which in the South
commences as early as March and in the Middle
States begins about the 5th of May and extends

12

THE HABITS OF THE BLACK BASS

into .July, the two fish, according to the reports
of the United States Fish Commission, prepare
the nest with their tails hy cleaning a space of all
substances, removing the larger stones on the bed
with their heads and mouths.

When the nests are ready for use, both fish,
but particularly the male, swim excitedly back and
forth about, around, and across the nest. When
spawning, as they cross the nest, their bellies he
close together, the female slightly forward of the
male, and the eggs and* milt are simultaneously
voided. The eggs, being viscid, at once become
attached to the floor of the nest. The parental
sohcitude of both fish begins at the moment the
eggs are fertilized^ one of them hovering over the
nest and waving its fins to and fro to keep the eggs
free from sediment. The other parent acts as
a sentinel and in water of a foot or two swims
around the nest at a distance of about ten
feet.

The above notes refer exclusively to the spawn-
ing habits of the small-mouthed black bass; those
of the large-mouth differ but slightly. The latter
seem to prefer to make their nests on the roots of
water-plants.

At the end of three or four days, or sometimes
a week, the fry leave the nest and immediately
seek shelter in shallows where vegetation is abun-
dant. They live mainly on minute larval forms,

13

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

although when slightly older small crustaceans
seem to be their principal food. At the age of
about four or five months they reach a length of
four to six inches, increasing, under the most
favorable conditions, about a pound a year.

The age at which black bass produce their eggs
has always been a matter of interest and is as yet
not fully determined. Some years ago Mr. J. J.
Stranahan, an Assistant United States Fish Com-
missioner, stationed at that time on Lake Erie,
wrote me from Chagrin Falls, Ohio :

" There are a number of small-mouthed black bass now
on their spawning-beds in a pond near town, and among
them is the smallest one I ever saw assuming maternal
duties. She is not over four or five inches long and will
not weigh over two ounces. Her bed is about the size of
a tea-saucer and is located about a foot from shore in ten
inches of water. It is well covered with eggs, and little
Mrs. Bass is looking after them with the greatest care,
fanning off the sediment with her tail and driving away
all intruding animals. She is much bolder than is usual
with her kind, and remains in the bed while visitors, of
whom she has had many in the past few days, are stand-
ing out four or five feet away. She is, of course, a dwarf,
and is probably two, or, more likely, three years old."

The eggs of the black bass differ greatly in
number and size. In a large-mouth weighing two
and a half pounds 17,000 eggs have been found,
which would average somewhat less than 7,000

14

THE HABITS OF THE BLACK BASS

eggs to tile pound of fish; but the careful count
of the mature eggs showed only an exact aggre-
gate of 2,674 eggs to the pound. This difference
can be accounted for only by the large size of the
eggs, and the counting of small eggs which were
commencing their maturity for the next production.

The Baby Bass

When the young bass reaches a growth of three
or four inches they have learned to take care of
themselves, and no minnow is so well adapted by its
courage and build to do so. Like all other young
fish, they may be found in the shallows at aU times,
but occasionally they venture afar, and it is not
unusual, on a baited hook, to catch one three inches
long in ^Ye or six feet of water. Even those of
two inches are fierce and voracious, and seem to be
marauders through heredity. When they leave the
protecting care of the parent they are about an inch
in length, and start out at once on their foraging
courses, snapping up every form of insect life in
the water, and along the shores one may now and
then be seen rising to the surface for an unlucky
gnat or small miller. I have seen them routing
under small stones for the lesser larvae of the hel-
gramite, or dobson, and chasing larger minnows
than themselves in the small pools near the shores.

I do not think there are young fish of any

15

THE basses: fres h~w ater and marine

species that can compare, in robustness of form,
symmetry of outline, or sheen of coloration, with a
young black bass two or less inches in length. It
is stout at the shoulders and of unusual depth of
body in proportion to its length, and the glint of
silver that comes through and illumines the darker
coloration of the upper part of its body is con-
stant and beautifully transparent in its diffusion.
With this stoutness of body it does not lose in grace-
fulness of contour, for every line is symmetrical.
The spines and rays of the fins are perfect in spe-
cific anatomical detail, with not a broken or marred
tip or a break here and there in the membrane they
support. Its external anatomy has not a flaw, for
the bass is a young Hercules in build without a
lesion in strength or beauty; with compact scales
and sturdy muscles it is the very image and build
of his parents, and has the same habits, indomi-
table courage, voracity, and greed, so far as his
growth permits.

Take out of the water where this vigorous little
fish lives any other minnow, except the young cat-
fish, and in nine cases out of ten you will find scales
sticking to your hands, broken spines or rays, and
often bruised noses, with a rip here and there in the
membrane of the fins. Still more frequently will
you have them flutter and die before the tiny hook
can be taken from the jaw. The young bass, al-
though not gifted with the vitality of the minnow

16

THE HABITS OF THE BLACK BASS

catfish or Ijowfin, has this quahty of a high grade
far beyond that of any of the cyprinoid or carp-
Hke minnows that may be said to pre-empt most of
the lowland streams and many of the lower reaches
of those of the mountains.

As the young bass passes through the period of
adolescence, there are no repellent organic meta-
morphoses in its life or body. It simply grows in
strength, vigor, and audacity, and when mature
these inherited qualities, developing normally as
they grow, give us a game-fish unequalled, for its
size, by any other that lives in the fresh waters of
the earth.

IT

QUALITIES OF THE BLACK BASS

Indigenous and Confined to American Waters

IT has been said that the black bass is pre-
eminently an American fish. Of this no
doubt can exist, for it is American born and
bred; its industry in foraging for a living,
intelligence of resources to escape capture, and
adaptability to any conditions of environment, be
it in cold or warm, fresh or salt water, are traits
that bring it in line with our fearless and resource-
ful pioneers of the Western wilds, who were
" plucky, game, brave, and unyielding to the last,"
and with such quahties the small-mouthed black
bass is fully endowed.

Weight

The black bass grows to a large size; the record
for a small-mouth caught in a lake in Glens Falls,
N. Y., is eleven pounds. Several of eight pounds
have been taken from Lake Ronkonkoma, L. I.
These were all small-mouths, but the authentic
maximum weight of the large-mouthed black bass

18

QUALITIES OF THE BLACK BA§S

is twenty-tiiree and three-quarter pounds, being
that of a specimen taken from a lake in Florida.
Since this large fish was caught and weighed I
have been assured by reliable anglers that large-
mouths have been killed on their own rods, of
which the weight was within a close call of thirty
pounds. There is nothing improbable in such state-
ments, for we all know that fish and other ani-
mals, under conditions of abundant food close to
their mouths, are likely to fatten as hogs do in
the sty.

Edible Qualities

As a table-fish the black bass is held in low esteem
by many and highly prized by others. The flesh of
the river bass caught in the summer months, when
the water is of high temperature and subject to fre-
quent rising and falling by reason of freshets, be-
comes soft and has a muddy or earthy flavor, while
that of the bass living in cold, clear, spring-fed
lakes is sweet, flaky, and juicy, particularly when
broiled. This method I believe is the only proper
way of preserving the excellent flavor of the black
bass. If a savorless river bass, when first caught,
is placed alive in the running water of a spring-
house, and allowed to remain there several days
to purge itself of the contaminations acquired in
the river, it will be found as sweet and palata-

19

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

He as a mountain-lake fish. The excellence of
Philadelphia poultry is well known. Before send-
ing his chickens to the market the Pennsylvania
farmer coops them up and feeds them richly for
a week or two, that they may gain fat and be-
come free from all barnyard taint. I have read
that in Germany, the execrable carp, so popular
as a table-fish in that country and so abominated
by American fish-eaters, is treated much in the
same way as the Pennsylvania farmer treats his
chickens.

Many anglers — and I humbly hasten to place
myself among them — believe that fishing for
black bass is more enjoyable, and can be more
frequently indulged in without palling, than
even angling for trout, for his big brother, the
lordly salmon, or for the acrobatic leviathans of
the Southern seas. The only qualification of
this opinion I am inclined to make is that fly-
fishing for black bass in running water, wad-
ing as in trout-fishing, must be understood as
the special factor justifying the above sweeping
statements.

It will not be amiss, even at the risk of repeating
myself from former notes on the black bass, to
state more fully the reasons why the black bass is
such a favorite fish among anglers.

20

QUALITIES OF THE BLACK BASS

*

Strength

The black bass is endowed with strength, for its
size, beyond that of most fresh- water fishes ; more-
over it seems to possess the intelligence (or an acute
development of instinct) to use its strength to the
best advantage in its efforts to escape from the
rod, to throw the hook from its mouth, or to sever
the gut of the leader by getting it around jagged
and sunken rocks. Frequently it will sink — sul-
lenly, as it were — to the bottom, and nothing will
dislodge it except main strength and the utmost
strain of the tackle by which it is held in restraint.
All the devices of an old salmon-angler will not
budge it from its lair: the throwing of stones,
lashing of the water, knocking on the butt of the
rod, even the jabbing of a stick at him unseen in
a pool (but doubtless not touching his body), have
failed, as have all other attempts, to make him move
an inch. Nothing but a steady strain sufficient to
overcome his strength of muscle will have any
effect, and frequently even that will be only tem-
porary, as under such conditions the bass will some-
times move but a few feet and then " sulk " again.
So persistent and determined is this action of the
fish, that one would be inclined to think that he
evidently braced his strong pectoral fins on the
sides of two stones between which he was " sulk-

21

I

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

ing," — a term insulting to the majesty of the fish
in his intelligence of resources to escape capture.

Leaping Traits

With many anglers the grade of a fish, when
restrained by the rod, is determined by his practice
of leaping from the water. I doubt if the salmon
of the fresh water, or the tarpon of the ocean,
would be so highly esteemed as a game-fish were
it not for their leaping qualities. The black bass is
an acrobat by heredity. No matter when you
fasten one in running water, he will sooner or later
come into the air. I have known them to leap
from an eddy on the side of a rift (they do not
feed in strong rapids) and alight in the boil of
the current, and fight there with an apparent
knowledge that the swift down-flowing water
aided their muscular efforts to escape.

Of the many fishes in American waters there are
to my knowledge only twelve that invariably come
out of the water when they feel the tension of a re-
straining line. These are the black bass, the salmon
(both sea and, landlocked), the rainbow-trout, the
unspotted mascalonge of the Northwest, the gray-
ling, and semi-occasionally the black spotted trout
of Western waters. These all have a fresh-water
habitat, and of them the black bass, the salmons,
rainbow-trout, and grayling are the only ones

89

?

'^^

QUALITIES OF THE BLACK BASS

known to me that leap into the air on a slack line.
The Eastern brook-trout (fontinalis) seldom, if
ever, comes entirely out of the water when hooked,
unless it be pulled out by the over-zealous angler.
Of the salt-water fishes that leap there are
only the tarpon, ladyfish, Spanish mackerel, the
large kingfish of Southern seas, and, strange to
note, the needle-fish or billfish of Key West, which
is the most skilled acrobat of them all in either fresh
or salt water. I have seen the latter fish make com-
plete double somersaults, their long, slim bodies,
with the sheen of a poUshed silver lance, looking in
the sunlight like a palpable thread of glancing
white light in the blue atmosphere of the Keys.

When fish leap from the water it is undoubtedly
with a view to escaping from the hook, and with
many of them the leap is followed by a vigorous
shake of the head. In the case of the black bass
the shake involves the entire body from the snout
to the tip of the caudal fin. The leap on a slack
line, which is never made, so far as I know, by the
Spanish mackerel and kingfish (not the " barb "
or " kingfish " of Northern waters) , is an evidence
of superior intelligence or accumulated experience
(take your choice) in a fish, for he has evidently
found that it is practically impossible to eject a
well-entered hook when a taut line holds it firmly
in place.

The black bass always leaps on a slack line, and

23

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

the angler frequently thinks that the fish has es-
caped, as the line loops in the water and the strain
upon it is no longer felt. But, presto ! thirty, forty,
or perhaps fifty feet away, his eye catches a gleam
of bronze and brass two or three feet above the sur-
face of the water, and he notes with delight the
aerial flight of that old bronze-backer, vigorous
even in the air, with every muscle in action, franti-
cally shaking its body and almost doubling it up
in the frenzy of restrained liberty. And just here,
sad to say, comes in the thrill evolved by the hope
that the quarry is within possible reach of capture.
The leap of the black bass is always directly up-
ward when hooked, and he generally falls tail first
into the water. At times, however, this fish, like
the trout, will rise vigorously to the fly, and, miss-
ing it, will make a graceful curve in the air ere he
quietly returns, head down, to his element. But as
a rule the bass rises fiercely and with an accurate
aim to the fly, and then starts instantly for his lair,
which, when feeding, is most frequently at the foot
of the rift flowing into a pool, or just on the edge
of the rapid in an eddy made by the swift running
water. I have never found basjs feeding or loiter-
ing in the rapids, and this is not easily accounted
for, seeing that in black-bass water the chub, large
and small, are always found in swift water. An-
other coincident condition is that the chub seem
to have reaUzed that they are safer from the rav-

24

QUALITIES 0*r THE BLACK BASS

ages of the bass in the swift currents than in the
still waters of the pools. I have noted — on the
Delaware River particularly — that whereas some
twenty-five years ago, before the black bass became
sovereigns of that water, the chub swarmed in the
pools and large eddies, at the present time a chub
can very seldom be taken on hook and line in
such waters. As an old angling friend, resident
upon the banks of this great black-bass stream,
expressed it :

" The chub appear to be stealing up the river by the
way of the shallow rapids near the shores, and can never
be found when the bass lie in the deep water."

But the black bass is not to be cheated of his
favorite food, for as the shadows fall he may be
found lying in wait in the circling eddies on the
edge of these rapids, and woe betide the hapless
cyprinoid that chances to come within jaw-reaching
distance of a ravenous bronze-backer, or within
the possible compass of a sudden dash into the
tumbling water, in which, however, the black bass
does not linger a minute, returning at once to the
eddy.

25

FEEDING-HABITS OF THE BLACK BASS

jA S the twilight deepens, the black bass will be
/% found either rising, here and there, to
/ % the surface of the deeper water, feeding
"^ on the insects that fall upon it (particu-
larly the gloaming-loving moths, which, as a rule,
swarm near and upon the rivers containing bass),
or, in the shallows along the shores, making the
water fairly boil with their dashes into depths of
but two or three inches, chasing the minnows ashore
by their impetuous rushes. I have actually seen
them, in the excitement of thus feeding, with their
dorsal fins entirely out of the water. It is at such
an hour that the angler meets with the greatest suc-
cess with the rod, and it matters but little what
feathers he uses, or how inexperienced he may be
in handling them, provided he makes his cast at
least fifty feet in length, and stands in deep water
when casting.

I once saw a black bass do a brutal deed that
fairly earned for him the title of "tiger," but I
doubt not that such actions could be laid to the
charge of many other fish. He had chased a chub

F E E D I N G-H ABITS*OF THE BLACK BASS

of five or six inches into a hole between the stones
of the side wall of a dam, a portion of the body of
the victim protruding. Mr. Bass swam quietly
up, and, selecting the softest and most delicate part
of the chub (the belly), dehberately tore out a
mouthful and swam slowly away with what seemed
a pleasurable flirt of the tail.

This tiger-like trait of the black bass is not ad-
mitted by some angling writers as being constant
or natural. A prominent author goes so far in the
defence of his favorite fish as to assert that it is
less destructive to the life of its fellows than the
yellow perch, pike-perch, mascalonge, trout, and
other fishes, and bases his belief on the fact that the
teeth are weak, closely packed, and present " an
even surface as uniform as the surface of a tooth-
brush. Such teeth are incapable of wounding,
and merely form a secure surface for holding
their prey securely." Black-bass anglers every-
where would gladly accept these words as gospel
truths; but the fact remains that the black bass,
hke all other fish known to us, do not masticate
their food, but gulp it down whole; and that,
their teeth being firm enough to keep their prey
from sHpping, the strength of the jaws is suffi-
cient to tear out a bit of the tenderest part of a
soft-fleshed cyprinoid.

27

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Temperature of 'Bass-Waters

There is an impression existing among many
who are interested in the life-history of the small-
mouthed black bass, that they thrive only in clear,
rocky, cool streams. Their lusty life and rapid
increase in such rivers as the Delaware, Susque-
hanna, and Potomac would seem to negative such
a statement. True, the black bass, like the trout,
is ever on the move up the fluvial waters : the latter,
from the imperative instinct of reproduction; the
black bass, I am led to believe, simply from the need
of new feeding-grounds, for they can be found,
during the spawning-season, on their beds, in a
stretch of more than a hundred miles on the Dela-
ware River in the month of June. Moreover,
and again as to their thriving only in cool water,
I have frequently stepped into the shallows along
the banks of that river, when the water produced
a sensation of heat to my feet and ankles, and
yet, then and there, a fly-cast made fifty feet
away creeled a bass from water hardly more than
two feet in depth. In the shallows the degree
of heat was certainly 85° to 90° F., and where
the fish was hooked it was surely not less than 80°.
This experience, many times repeated, was con-
firmed at East Branch, Delaware County, N. Y.,
at least 200 miles above tide-water as the river

F E E D I N G-H ABITS^OF THE BLACK BASS

runs, and where the small-mouthed black bass are
numerous and take the feathers, soberly dressed,
with frequency and avidity.

Now, there is a peculiar trait of the small-
mouthed black bass of that section which I have
never seen mentioned in the books or journals de-
voted to the subject of angling. When the rail-
road traversing that region took up and vigorously
carried to success the idea of stocking the streams
of Sullivan County with several species of trout,
great fears were felt by anglers that the black
bass of the Delaware would eventually find their
way into the Beaverkill and Willowemoc and
destroy the trout. These fears, after ten years
of observation, have proved groundless. The cold
waters of the above-named rivers, uniting just
below Rockland, seem to be a barrier to the up-
ward progress of the bass, although there are
many large and sufficiently deep pools in the
lower Beaverkill in which they could live and
thrive.

Leaping of the Large-Mouths

Much has been said and written, pro and con,, as
to the large-mouthed black bass leaping into the air
when hooked. They certainly do not do so, even
semi-occasionally, in my experience, on waters east
of the Alleghanies; but they frequently come into

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

the air in the waters of the Northwest, and several
of my friends who annually visit Florida solely
for fishing tell me that in some of the interior
lakes of that State the big-mouths not only leap
after being hooked, but do so on a slack line.

30

BAIT-FISHING FOR BLACK BASS

Artificial vs. Natural Baits

DOUBTLESS nine tenths of the bass
fishermen fish with bait, artificial and
natural, and have not as yet reached the
higher grade of enjoyment, — that of
fly-fishing. Numerous and enjoyable, however,
are the methods by which this fish is lured, particu-
larly with natural baits, the latter reaching scores
in number. But no artificial lures have yet been
made to equal the attraction of a live or even a
dead minnow, if hooked properly, especially if a
spinner about the size of a ten-cent piece be placed
on the line an inch or two above the bait fish.

We think that artificial lures of any description
are more attractive to fish that live in running
waters than to those which inhabit lakes and ponds.
In the former the fish are forced to hustle for food;
in the latter, food is, as a rule, more plentiful, and
the smaller fishes upon which the bass feed have
fewer lairs of security and seem to use less activity
in reaching them.

31

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Methods of Bait-Fishing

The methods of fishing for black bass with baits,
excluding fly-fishing, are varied, and, I think, re-
quire skill in luring beyond that necessary to boat
all other fresh-water fishes that take a baited
hook.

Still-Fishing

Take the apparently simple one of still-fishing
from an anchored boat. In this style of fishing the
general rule is to strike at once when a fish plucks
fiercely. Not so with the bass ; he is most leisurely
and lazy when taking the lure in still water, mov-
ing off slowly with it, generally down current, and
I doubt if ever a bass is hooked under such condi-
tions except by chance. One never knows when to
strike. Unlike the pike or pickerel, which take a
minnow bait, move off a few feet, stop and appar-
ently turn the minnow and swallow it head fore-
most, and then give a signal to strike by moving
off again, the black bass will at times hold the min-
now crosswise in its mouth and go slowly down cur-
rent sometimes 200 feet before stopping, and even
then at times seems to be toying with its prey, for
it is frequently found that striking and reeling at
that distance will bring the minnow, still alive, back
to the boat. This is a daily experience on the upper

B A I T-F I S H I N G ¥\> R BLACK BASS

waters of the Delaware; on other rivers, where the
bass are very numerous and shoulder and fight each
other for food, it seldom, if ever, occurs.

Casting the. Minnow

The most admired and skilful method, but the
least followed on Eastern waters, is that of
minnow-casting for bass. Like fly-casting it can-
not be taught by description or diagrams. Briefly
and rudely told, the angler stands on the bank of a
stream or lake, or in a boat, with a rod about seven
feet in length, which is held tip-down three or four
feet from the body, either to the right or the left,
then with an upward swoop brought to about the
height of the head, with the tip pointing in the
direction of a rising bass or where one is supposed
or hoped to be, the line running free from the reel
until just a moment before the lure strikes the
water, when it is stopped by the thumb of the
angler. A few practical lessons on the stream
will soon perfect the novice if he has the material
in him; if not, he had better stick to his still-fishing
or to drifting his minnow bait down stream, with
his bait-bucket fumbling between and around his
legs.

The merest bungler as a rod-fisher should not be
discouraged, for black bass are. frequently caught
without using rod, line,^hook, or bait. In the upper

3 33

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

waters of our large rivers there are many mud or
grassy flats with only a few inches of water on them,
sufiicient, however, to float a small flat-bottomed
boat. It is not an infrequent occurrence, when one
of the latter is rowed at night over these bottoms,
to have the black bass, thus disturbed in feeding on
such fruitful and favorite ground, to jump, in
their fright, into the boat. In fact it is of official
record that on three consecutive nights one person
captured by this unique method 42, 132, and 63
fine bass, some as large as two and a half pounds
in weight. The most sensitive humanitarian could
not object to this method of fishing, where there
is no live bait to impale, or hook to extract from
the mouth of a captured quarry.

A Tricky Method

A friend of ours has a tricky way of luring
black bass when "off their feed." He hooks a
worm in the centre, so that when he puts on a min-
now the ends of the worm hang on either side of
the head of the fish. His theory is that the bass
reasons thus: "That fellow is going off^ with a
prize; if he was not in good health he would
scarcely have such a good appetite; therefore it
is evident that no fisherman has played tricks with
that lusty fellow," — and so Old Fin goes fiercely
after the young cyprinoid and our friend's basket
is made heavier by another fish.

34

B A I T-F ISHING F©R BLACK BASS

Chugging

There is a method of trolling which, slightly
varied, is known on the Niagara River as " chug-
ging." It is alluded to more particularly for its
value to fishermen when first visiting an unknown
water, as it enables them to find the favorite
feeding-grounds of the black bass. A heavy
sinker of four to eight ounces in weight is attached
to the line, and about three feet above the sinker a
gut leader of three or four feet in length is fast-
ened, and the hook is baited with a live minnow.
The boatman is ordered to row slowly, and the
sinker is allowed to touch the bottom every now
and then, the leader and the minnow extending at
an angle of about 45° from the line if the boat is
properly and slowly rowed. With this gear you
compass the lake or pond, telling your local boat-
man (who should know the physical character of
the water upon which he guides and lives) not to
neglect passing over all the relatively shallow flats.
When the pluck of a fish is felt, or a bass taken,
instruct the boatman to make a wide circle and
again pass over, as near as may be, the same spot.
If upon his doing so, another bite is felt, circle
once more, and if similar results occur you have
found a feeding-ground, so anchor and be happy.

35

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Skittering

" Skittering " is an abominable, fatiguing, and
(except in skilled hands) uncertain method used by-
residents in the vicinity of lakes in the northwest-
ern part of the Middle States, and in some of the
Southern States, for catching the large-mouthed
bass. It consists in using a pole from twelve to
twenty feet long, having a line somewhat longer
than the pole tied to its tip. The fisherman stands
in the bow of the boat and switches the line and bait
(usually a frog) to and fro, particularly among the
lily-pads or other vegetation along the shores. As
the line is usually somewhat longer than the pole,
it takes an expert to boat the bass when hooked.

When fishing with crayfish for bait, the angler
will be greatly pestered, if not careful, by its crawl-
ing under logs or into any crevices it may find.
Some fishermen try to prevent this by breaking off
one of its claws, but this is merely a partial remedy.
Others, with greater success and comfort, keep the
crustacean well in hand by lifting it an inch or two
from the bottom every minute or so. In hooking
a crayfish run the hook in under the tail and bring
the barb out through the back. The bass always
takes the crayfish tail first, but it is best to allow
him several moments to swallow it before striking;
in fact this rule is a good one when fishing with

36

E.^

B A I T-F ISHING F^R BLACK BASS

baits that the bass apparently gulps down. One
exception, I think, should pi^evail : black bass, while
seldom, if ever, found feeding in the long and
relatively shallow waters of rivers, will frequently
be found just at the tail of the rapid water as it
pours into and subsides in the deeper waters of the
large eddies or pools. These places are grand,
fruitful waters for the angler who hooks his min-
now through both lips and tosses it into the upper
foam, whence it passes into the subsiding current
and frequently into the maw of an awaiting and
hungry bass. If the angler chances to fish the
deeper and quiet waters below, he hooks his minnow
in the middle of the back and allows it to wander
to and fro in mid- water or near the bottom, having
taken care that the hook has not touched the back-
bone, which would be fatal to the life of the
minnow.

Still-Fishing and Trolling Outfit

The outfit for a black-bass fisher who still-fishes
or trolls is very simple and includes a moderately
stiff rod eight to nine feet long and weighing
seven to eight ounces; a No. 6 line and a 100-yard
multiplying reel; a supply of Sproat hooks from
No. 4 to 1-0 tied on single snells; a small float
or cork (if you can permit yourself to use one —
I cannot) to prevent the bait from bottom-catching;

37

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

a twelve-inch landing-net, and a box of lampreys,
helgramites, or grasshoppers, a live-minnow bucket ;
and a dozen single-gut leaders, three to nine feet
long.

Mr. H. C. McDougall, of Newark, N. J., a few
years ago wrote me:

" I have demonstrated to my own satisfaction that black
bass can be attracted to the boat by liberally dropping
fresh earth into the water while at anchor."

When trolling (an abominable habit), when
every other device failed, I have always resorted
to a trail of six or eight of the largest and gaudiest
lake flies, looping them on the leader about eight
inches apart, being careful that each should con-
trast with its neighbor in coloration, and placing
the most variegated Dolly Varden feathers as an
end fly. With a hundred feet of line out and
the boat rowed slowly, failure seldom, if ever,
comes to the fisherman.

In trolling with such flies use the rod, line, and
reel I have described, and a single-gut leader one
size finer than salmon gut, and one foot shorter
than the length of your rod down to your reel. A
small brass swivel should connect the leader with
the line, to prevent the leader from twisting. The
flies should be tied from No. 1 to 1-0; the bodies
should be larger than are generally made, nearly
as large around as an ordinary lead-pencil.

38

B A I T-F ISHING FOF^ BLACK BASS

I

Seasonal Conditions

In the opinion of many anglers backwardness of
spring and a previous severe winter improve the
fishing chances of summer for many if not all
the so-called game-fishes. The reason for this, in
the opinion of old Waltonians, is that the severity
of the winter has destroyed the larvae of many
insects, and the cold and, late spring retards the
spawning of the cyprinoids and other small fish
that reproduce their kind in March, April, and
May. The principal food of the black bass con-
sists of larvae, matured insects, and small fish, such
as the daces and shiners; hence the smaller the
quantity of natural food the greater the eagerness
of the fish to take the lure. Be this argument
fallacious or otherwise, it is a matter of experience
with many old anglers that late springs are fol-
lowed, as a rule, by well-filled creels.

39

BAITS FOR BLACK BASS

THE number and variety of baits that en-
tice black bass have never yet been defi-
nitely settled. Certain it is that they will
take any living thing, small enough —
and sometimes too large — for them to swallow.
The definite size of a perch or a sunfish which a
large-mouthed black bass cannot engulf is still im-
aginary, for none of these big-mouths have been
found choked by a food-fish, although it is not
an infrequent occurrence to find the small-mouths
in that condition, floating helpless on the surface
of the water. The fins on either the sunfish or the
perch do not seem to bother the bass very much.
If their prey is very large it may take them longer
to turn and swallow them head first, but when so
swallowed, the fins close down like a fan and sUp
through the gullet without any difficulty.

The Capture or Purchase of Live Bait

One of the saddest trials to many anglers is the
capture or purchase of the most alluring baits. If
an opportunity to buy them occurs, one is apt to be

40

BAITS FOR BLACK BASS

charged an exorbitant price, sonfietimes as high as
three dollars a hundred for live minnows, crayfish,
or lamper-eels, half or more of which are apt to die
before the fishing day is over. Personally, how-
ever, I may say that some of the most enjoyable
hours are those passed in the capture of live baits.
It fills up the off days or early hours when the bass
are not in a biting humor, and, best of all, it will
make one independent of the local bait-peddler,
who, of all human beings, has the least conscience
anent crime within the law. Live baits are easily
obtained.

The Lamprey

First, the so-called lamper-eel, whicH is not an
eel, but belongs to a very low order of water ani-
mals, having no bony skeleton, no gills, ribs or
limbs, and being a naked, eel-shaped creature with
a sucker mouth, the lips of which are fringed with
fine hairs. It inhabits the fresh water of rivers and
brooks and gets its living by attaching itself to
other fishes, feeding upon them by scraping off the
flesh with its rasp-like teeth. They are usually
found in the mud close to the shores, and a shovel
is all that is necessary to capture them. Dig deep
and throw the mud upon the dry bank, and search
thoroughly through it with the hands for the wig-
glers. They are more slippery and agile than the
eel, and of all live baits the most difficult to impale

41

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

upon the hook. A dead one is not attractive to the
bass, but — to the bother of the angler — very
much so to the small sunfishes and chubs.

Catfisli

The small catfishes, which are favorite baits
with many bass-fishermen, bear several popular
Inames, such as " stonecats," " mad-toms," " black
bullheads," "pouts," etc. They are found under
stones along the shores. Take a hammer with you,
and on seeing a stone with a shelving side, no mat-
ter how slight the angle, strike quickly and sharply
on its top; lift it up at once, and you may find
underneath it one or more catfish from two to four
inches long, stunned and helpless. Seize them
quickly (avoiding touching the spine on the back),
as they recover and disappear almost in an instant.
This bait is very tenacious of life, and on a single
one as many as five black bass have been caught
before the catfish died. This result, however, is,
in a measure, owing to the fact that in many in-
stances the black bass, like many other fishes, when
striking fiercely at live bait, and sometimes even
when they appear to have gently mouthed it,
force the minnow from the hook several feet above
it on the line or leader. A satisfactory angling
diagnosis or explanation of this peculiar condition
is yet to be mad,e.

^

BAITS FOR BLACK BASS

Crayfish

As crayfish frequent the bottom rather than the
surface or midwater of the stream, the bait should
be dropped to the bottom at the head of a hole.
When the crustacean finds a hold, it will burrow
just deep enough to make fast either in the sand
under a cobble or in a crack in a stone. A bass evi-
dently knows the meaning of the little pile of fresh
sand as well as a fisherman looking for bait, as the
fish will nose out the crayfish when the latter cannot
pull it out. If the crawfish is fast, the first intima-
tion of a bite will be when a fierce-looking bass
jumps from the water with the bait in its maw.

Many fishermen prefer crayfish to any other live
bait. They are found under stones near the shores
of rivers and brooks, and frequently in lakes. It is
well to use a small hand-net of fine mesh to capture
them, as they are quick in their movements. A bet-
ter plan, however, is to place a bait of decaying
flesh or animal garbage in a piece of net on spots
they are known to frequent; they will gather
around it in numbers, and can be easily captured.

The salt-water shrimp, preserved in alcohol,
which is allied to the crayfish, has been found very
attractive to the black bass of Greenwood Lake,
and doubtless would be in any other water.

43

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Dohson

The dobson or helgramite is the aquatic larva of
a fly, the horned corydalis (Corydalis cornutus),
somewhat resembhng and closely allied to the
" devil's darning-needle " or " dragon-fly," a large
well-known, lace-wing fly. It is also found under,
above, just below, and on the low- water line of
rivers and other waters of low temperature. Lift
a stone quickly, and seize the animal instantly, for
it is a rapid mover and disappears in a trice. It
has nearly as many legs as a centipede, and two
nippers on the front of the head, with which it
often seizes the hand of its captor, inflicting a
small but harmless wound, the pain of which
ceases in a moment or two.

Why the nomenclature of the dobson should be
so suggestive of the infernal regions and his Satanic
majesty it is hard to determine, though the long
antennae or horns of the perfect winged creature
have something to do with the vulgar naming of a
harmless animal. It is said to exist for several
years in the larval state, and it is during this
period that it is suitable for baiting purposes.

The varied and curious nature of the names
assigned to the dobson has no parallel, and can be
accounted for only by the fact that the creature
has been found in a fossil state in stratas of pri-

44

BAITS FOR BLACK BASS

meval rocks formed millions of years ago, and by
the supposition that its nicknames have been ac-
cumulating throughout the ages since the world
began. They are worthy of record. Besides the
more general names of dobson and helgramite, the
larva is known by the following names at different
points :

New Jersey

Belvidere, Black crab

Interior points, Crock

Lambertville, Water-gram-
pus

Tumble, Gogglegoy
New York

Broome County, Mollygrub ;
Scrabble

Fulton, Andy; Black crab;
Flying-crab ; White crab

Milford, Sand-crab; Stone-
crab

Port Jervis, Clipper

Schenectady, Black worm ;
Flying-worm

Schoharie, Dragon

Western sections. Alligator
North Carolina

Raleigh, Hell-diver ; Red
crab ; Yellow crab
Pennsylvania

Carlisle, Ho-jack

Flat-Rock Dam (Schuylkill
River), Clipper-bug

Hanover, Snake-doctor

Hazleton, Devil

Honesdale, Clipper

Lafayette, Stone-climber

Monroe, Hell-devil

Perkiomen, Crawler

Pond Eddy, Ho-jack

Portland, Bogart

Towanda, Conniption-bug

Tuplehocken Dam, Alug-
mite ; Hiltamite

Wilkes-Barre, DobsiU; HeU-
lion ; Kill-devil

W^yalusing, Devil-catcher
Virginia

In parts, FUp-flap ; Stone-
devil
Wisconsin

Fox and Rock rivers, Dam-
worm

Janesville, Crawler

45

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Minnows

The live minnows used in taking black bass are
of many species, with many and varied local names
for the same fish. The most conmion in use, and
confusedly so, are generally known as chub, shiner,
dace, silver minnow, golden shiner, darter, etc. In
this connection it is important to remember that
black bass take more eagerly any live bait brought
from waters that are distant from its habitat. The
most successful method of procuring minnows for
baiting purposes is by the use of a seine not less
than fifteen feet in length and of very small mesh.
Such devices as glass minnow traps or dip nets are
not, as a rule, successful, although in some waters
the former seem to be fairly effective. Old anglers
who do not care to spend the entire day in fish-
ing and are not equipped with a seine delight in
catching their minnows singly on an almost micro-
scopic piece of worm placed on the point of a midge
hook. On a shady shelving shore with a light rod.
and delicate tackle minnow-fishing has its pleasures.

Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers, at certain seasons of the year, are
most attractive bait for black bass. They usually
abound and are easily caught with an insect net on

46

BAITS FOR BLACK BASS

the fields adjoining the fishing- waters. The little
green-backed frog is also used by some black-bass
fishermen. They are caught in hand-nets, but the
pursuit of them is often tedious and tiresome.
They are very eif ective when used in skittering.

When other live baits fail in supply, fishermen
find an attractive bait for bass in the large garden
worms called " night-walkers."

It is said that our German friends on the upper
Delaware use bologna sausage as bait for black
bass, thus killing two birds with one stone, as they
draw out of their capacious pockets either lunch or
lure, as their appetites or the fishes demand.

47

IN THE MATTER OF FLIES

In Running Waters

THERE are times when the black bass
will take the fly, particularly in running
waters, at all hours of the day, — in the
glare of sunlight nearly as fiercely as
under a lowering sky; but these occasions are very
widely apart. I never fish for them in streams until
dusk, or when the day is very dark, and then I use
a medium size of fly, what is usually known as
a large trout fly, tied on a No. 6 Sproat hook.
With two of these flies dressed in subdued colors,
I whip the head, middle, and tail end of pools,
never the rapids, although I have caught many
fish in the eddies on the sides of the very swift
water, and in one instance had a bass jump four
feet across a little rapid at my flies trailing on the
opposite side from where he was lying, perdu.

In Lakes

As to lakes, it is, I think, a waste of time to
fish broad waters for black bass with a fly, unless

48

IN THE MATTER OF FLIES

you find shallow ledges of rocks where the water
is not over five or six feet deep; and if less, the
better for your outlook. True, the bass, lacking
a food-supply in such places, will forage near the
shore, particularly around the aquatic vegetation
in the little bays, and, more likely, even than there,
at the mouths of small brooks that flow into the
lake. Under such conditions, get out of your boat,
put on your wading-trousers, and approach the
spot within fifty to sixty feet — black-bass fly-
fishing requires long casting. Let your flies sink
an inch or two, and. then draw your cast slowly
in, with the dropper just touching the surface
of the water. Should you see the swirl of a rise,
cast instantly into it and let your flies sink at
once.

If black bass are caught on lakes with the arti-
ficial fly on a bright day, the occasions are excep-
tional, and the fish are taken only when cloud
shadows are passing now and then; but when the
gloom of the fading day spreads over the water,
or before sunrise, the bass feed, and at such times
they, like all other fish that come to the surface,
will take a trailing lure, be it of feathers, of metal,
or of Nature's build. I have caught at least
twenty species, including thirteen varieties of
Southern salt-water fish, with the artificial fly, and
never failed to lure any fish to the moving
feathers, provided the water was clear enough for

49

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

the fish to see them. Even catfish and suckers
have fallen a prey to the artificial fly.

I do not claim that black bass will take the arti-
ficial fly in preference to. the spinner or natural
baits, although I have known instances where they
did so. I simply say to all doubters that if fished
for under the proper conditions, the bass can be
taken with the feathers with more or less success
in all its native waters. Diff*erence in habitat will
affect measurably, and in limited instances, the
habits of fish, their hours of feeding, action when
hooked, coloration, and (even to a slight degree)
their physical structure; but a hungry bass in any
water will seize a moving lure if in its action it
approaches that of a Hving creature.

Choice of Flies

As to the choice of flies, no list would satis ly
the craft at large. Anglers are markedly divided
into two classes — the colorists and the formal-
ists. The first have an intense belief in the color-
dressing of a fly, and some of them go so far as
to swear by the minutest and almost obscure tints
on the tip of the wing or on the hackles. The
formalists, on the other hand, discard color as
of little value in luring, but insist on form and
manner in dressing. They argue for and believe
in either large-winged, small-winged, or cocked-

50

IN THE MATTER OF FLIES

winged flies, or even in flies with no wings at all;
and many become settled in the conviction that
the hackles, palmer-dressed or otherwise, are the
only killing bugs for black bass.

There is, however, — and fortunately, — a large
class of black-bass fly-fishermen who, when at
work on the stream, observe the conditions exist-
ing upon it and fish in accordance therewith.
These anglers, as a rule, believe more in the effi-
cacy of the manipulation of a cast of flies than in
color or form, not ignoring the fact, however,
that as the evening closes the minuter forms of
insect life gather in greater numbers over the sur-
face of the water. In fact, it is not an uncom-
mon incident to see black bass " gnatting " in the
gloaming. In doing this the fish does not rise
abruptly to the surface, but may be seen a few
inches under the water, and when a " no-see-um "
floats down, the bass comes quietly up, with only
a gentle disturbance of the water, and sucks it in.

Standard Dressings Best

It is safe to assert that all the makes of the
standard dressings, tied on Nos. 4 to 7 Sproat
hooks, will kill black bass when they are feeding;
always, however, bearing in mind that the closer the
action of the artificial fly is made to resemble
the struggles of a drowning insect the fuller will

51

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

be the angler's creel. Subdued colors in the dress-
ing of flies are, I think, the best, and of these
my preference is for one of which body, head,
wings and feet are made of the feathers plucked
from the brownest of turkeys.

I have caught black bass in numbers with the
ordinary black, gray, and brown hackles, and
often use no others, except, indeed, when the fish
are not biting. At such times, where is the fisher-
man who does not go earnestly through his book
down to the last feather, hoping against hope that
this or that bug will do the work, until he has
fruitlessly spent perhaps half a day in whipping
the stream, and at last gets hold of a nondescript
fly which has lain unused and unvalued in an out-
of-the-way corner of his fly-book for several sea-
sons. With it, then and there, he fills his creel,
and ever after swears by it, brags of it, and be-
lieves it to be the fly, forgetting that his ha^f-
day's unsuccessful work was made during the
basses' off*-biting hours, and that his infallible non-
descript chanced to fall among eager, hungry fish,
who were ready for bug, minnow, or gogglegoy.

It is said that when black bass are gorged
— hence " ofl* feed " — a red ibis fly with a live
minnow on the hook will lure them if anything
wiU.

THE BLACK BASS AND THE TROUT
COMPARED

IT were idle to tell the trouter — whose heart
is forever pulsing with the memory of a fa-
vorite mountain brook, which babbled all day
to him with its musical echoes from out of
the old rocky channel-ways, singing through the
chords of the shouldering pines that cluster along
its banks — it were idle to tell him that the bass is
a nobler and harder fighter than the trout. That
one isolated day, when, tempted by the urgency of
a bass-loving friend, he cast his fly upon the surface
of a hundred-acre lake and failed to get a rise, set-
tled the question forever in his mind, and " No
Micropterus for me " became the fiat of the moment
and the text of his future angling life. It is not
to be wondered at. He might as well have tried to
shoot salmon in trees as to attempt to lure the wary
black bass from the cool recesses of a lake fifty feet
in depth, with its bosom as glassy as an unscratched
mirror.

Perhaps — but even then it would have been an
exceptional triumph — had he chanced to find the

53

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

waters ruffled by a rippling breeze, a bass might
have been struck, which on light trout tackle would
have tingled his blood in the striking and taxed his
best skill in handling, and our angler, like many
others known to me, would have soon forgotten his
old love and ardently burned for the new.

Trolling with Flies

I do not pretend to assert that lake fishing with a
fly for black bass is always a failure, for I have
caught the muscular small-mouth when casting and
skittering the feathers on the uncertain bosom of
Lake Champlain, but it has always been over rocky
ledges and at the mouths of inflowing streams.
Nor do I deny that trolling with flies or allowing
the flies, when cast, to sink two or three feet below
the surface and then drawing them slowly in, is
not of ttimes a killing method. But — and alas ! —
after aU it is simply bait-fishing with the fly (your
lure goes to the fish, the fish does not come to it) ,
and, as such, should be deprecated by the true
angler, except, of course, where food is necessary
for camp use, when the spear, the net, and all
the contrivances of the pot-fisher are permissible
to the extent only of the demands of an urgent
stomach.

Every living thing inhabiting the stream (the
surface bug, the mid-water minnow, or the bottom

54

<;3

"^j
^

BLACK BASS AND TROUT COMPARED

creeper) falls a prey to the jaws of both trout and
bass; yet of the two, the bass is the more deUcate
feeder. Time and again I have caught a trout
whose mouth was widely distended, by a crayfish
or young trout, and the wonder came quickly to my
angling senses how that trout managed to strike
and to be hooked by the fly with his jaws propped
wide open by his half -swallowed prey. No black
bass was ever caught by my rod when it was in such
a gormandizing frenzy.

Comparatively few anglers fish for black bass
with the artificial fly. The practice is one of rela-
tively recent date, and facilities for indulging in
the sport, particularly in running water, are infre-
quent, and often distant from the large cities; yet
the charm of casting the feathers for the bass, one
of the choicest and gamest of fishes, when once
experienced, grows upon the angler almost to the
exclusion of any desire to fish by any other method
or for any other fish. Old rod-fishermen say that,
as a regular angling diet, fly-fishing for black
bass never creates a surfeit or leaves a void to be
fiUed.

The Tiger of the Waters

The reason for this is apparent to any one who
has waded along and cast the flies over a mountain

6S

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

trout-stream, as the black bass in rivers and brooks
have many habits identical with those of the brook-
trout east of the AUeghanies. They live upon the
same animal and insect food, and may be found
feeding, like trout, in the shallows and at the foot
of rifts, retiring to the deep pools for repose and
digestion. At such times, however, they are in one
respect like the trout: they will not take a lure,
either natural or artificial, although they have been
seen, under like conditions, to kill young fish of
aUen species, seemingly from the love of destroying
life, tearing bits of flesh from the backs of sunfish
and then sculling away with what seemed like a
pleasurable flirt of the tail. Hence the name of
" tiger of the waters," applied to them in some of
the Western States.

Trout will gorge themselves to the lips, taking an
artificial fly with the tail of a minnow sticking from
the mouth. Black bass will purr over and play with
the minnow bait, and sometimes suck it in tail first
and then spit it out with force, sending it spinning
three or four feet from them. It is practices like
these that perplex the bait-fishermen when fishing
for black bass in the large and relatively quiet pools
that occur in such rivers as t&e upper Delaware and
Susquehanna, where, as I have stated in a previous
chapter, it has been found that the most eff*ective
way of hooking them is by paying out fifty to a
hundred feet of line when the " draw " or gentle

66

BLACK BASS AND TROUT COMPARED

pluck of the fish has been seen or felt. This method
is used owing to the erratic manner in which the
black bass takes a live minnow, — a long free line
and great patience being necessary to meet its vari-
ous moods and to place the hook securely in the
flesh of its mouth or gullet. On the other hand,
these fish, when in running water, particularly at
the tail of a rapid, usually take the minnow head
first with a rush.

Night Sports of the Bass

Black bass often disport themselves as the day
closes, like the trout, by turning somersaults in the
air, and on favorable nights, when the twilight lin-
gers or the moon shines, they may be seen sporting
and lashing the pools as late as midnight; in fact
I have had them jump between my legs when
wading and fishing for them in mid-stream at
night.

Because of these habits of the bass, the trout-
fisherman with bait or fly finds a duplication of his
pleasing experiences when angling for bass in flu-
vial waters ; and, as it is said that a good trout-rod
handler will quickly catch the art of successfully
luring and handling a salmon, so also may it be
stated that he will soon become an expert at black-
bass fishing, with the additional charm of the same
picturesque surroundings of hill and rock, of danc-

57

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

ing waters and pellucid pools, that await him on the
trout-stream.

Haunts of Bass and Trout

Black bass have never been found, as have often
been the trout, in the heart of the rifts or rapids,
but frequently on the edge of them, or in the cir-
cling eddies formed by the back-set of the current
on either side of the rapids. True, at times, the
bronze-backers, as the black bass are often called,
will rush into the foaming rapids in pursuit of
minnows, and have been seen to jump into the air
and across the boil of a narrow rapid, and take the
fly from the eddy on the other side of the current,
which action would seem to indicate a repugnance
to entering a very rapid water even when foraging
for food.

It has been observed that the black bass in rivers
are constantly seeking the upper waters, their range
being restricted only when the cold spring water
is reached and there is an absence of deep pools in
which they can find rest and comparative protection
from danger. This disinclination of river-bred bass
to enter cold spring brooks where trout live has
saved the latter fish from extermination in many
waters. The upper range of the bass is, no doubt,
induced by the dearth of their natural food in the
lower waters, a condition caused by the over-popu-

BLACK BASS AND TROUT COMPARED

lation of the latter by their foraging congeners.
In their upper migrations they wait, like the salmon
and trout, until a freshet occurs before they start
up stream, and they have been known to loiter for
weeks in shallow pools rather than breast the shoaler
waters of the rifts. On the other hand, they have
been seen in schools of a dozen or more, swimming
toward the upper waters with their back fins stick-
ing out of the surface of the dark, saffron-colored
current when the stream was swollen to near high-
water mark. At such a season all lures were re-
jected, and very often the most unpropitious time
to visit an otherwise favorable and fruitful pool is
immediately after a freshet, for it has been deserted
by its old inhabitants and the incoming migration
has not reached it. A rain of even a few hours'
duration will sometimes affect the feeding-habits
of the black bass, either from their being surfeited
by the downpour of surface food washed out from
the banks, or by the fish leaving the lower for the
upper pools. Certainly a heavy freshet will render
barren a pool that has hitherto been fruitful, and
just here is found an additional similarity between
the habits of the black bass and the brook-trout.
Trout, particularly after the first of August, are
found only in diminished numbers in the lower pools
and reaches of the brooks; the greater number
have left for the upper waters, but not from the
same cause that induces the migration of the black

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

bass. The trout, impelled by instinct, seek for
highly aerated waters in which to reproduce their
kind; the black bass are hunting for better forag-
ing-grounds.

The black bass, like the trout, will live and thrive
in cold spring waters that are landlocked, if born
and bred there, but they do not seem to enter a trout-
stream from choice; and if the ponds or lakes are
comparatively shallow, as most trout-waters are,
the black bass will not increase in numbers or
size.

Migrations

Another similarity between the black bass and the
trout is their autunm migrations. The trout, after
spawning, fall back to the lower and deeper waters
to recuperate from the feebleness caused by the
reproductive act. The bass, after the extrusion of
their spawn, do not seem to be enfeebled, but rather
appear to be endowed with new life and combative
vigor to defend their young; and at about the
same period at which the trout seek the lower
waters, the bass also begin their return migra-
tion, which they extend in some rivers — notably
the Susquehanna — down as far as the brackish
water.

BLACK BASS AND TROUT COMPARED

On the Hook

Similar in many respects as the trout and black
bass are in their stream habits, the resemblance
ceases when they are fastened to the hook, and their
intelligence in the uses of devices to free themselves
shows greatly to the advantage of the bass. The
trout are by far the less intelligent or ingenious
in the arts of escape; they seem to rely solely upon
their strength of muscle and obdurate resistance,
showing no trait of the resources of the black bass
to free themselves from captivity. The black
bass are gifted in this respect ; they leap repeatedly
from the water into the air, and frantically try to
eject the hook from the mouth by violently shaking
the body, — not the head only, as many anglers
assert: they cannot shake the one without the
other. They rush around deep-lying or outcropping
rocks in their efforts to cut the line, and go down to
the bottom and " jigg, jigg, and jigg," much, as
I have before said, like a dog tugging at a rope held
by the hand. None of these devices is resorted to
by the trout. It never leaps into the air or comes
to the top of the water when the hook is fast, unless
compelled to do so by a strong pull on the line by
an over-eager angler. The black bass leaps into
the air on a slack line.

With these attractive traits it is not strange that

61

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

the black bass, pound, for pound, inch for inch, is
considered the superior on the rod of all fresh-
water fish, and when taken in running water on light
tackle and artificial flies its qualities of resistance
appear to gather strength and certainly add to its
chances of escape. Anglers who fish with light gear
which their quarry can break if a direct strain upon
it is obtained by the fish feel that they are giving to
their scaled prey the same chances for life as the
field sportsman gives to the quail or pheasant which
he disdains to shoot on the ground and will fire at
only when on the wing.

The Angler's Outfit

The outfit for fly-fishing for black bass is very
similar to that used in trout-fishing; the flies are
often alike in name and dressings, but the feathers
are dressed on larger hooks, and the hackles are
generally tied well down to the bend of the hook,
in palmer or bunched fashion. Many anglers use
flies that are too large for fishing in running water ;
those dressed on Nos. 4 to 6 Sproat, and generally
called " large trout flies," will answer well, and the
use of the so-called big " lake flies " on running
water has been discontinued by experienced anglers.

In these latter days, since angling tournaments
have been held, rods are built with more backbone,
but without increased weight; and a six-ounce split-

Playing the Black Bass

BLACK BASS AND TROUT COMPARED

bamboo fly-rod, nine feet long, will kill with ease,
and in ten minutes or less, any black bass that is
apt to rise to a fly in fluvial waters; they seldom
weigh more than two and a half to three pounds.
A leader of single gut, six to nine feet in length,
that will lift a dead weight of three pounds, is
generally used, and upon it are tied or looped two
flies. Thus equipped, with the addition of a creel
slung over the shoulder, the stream is entered, with
a long-handled landing-net to be used as a staff.

Fly-Fishing

The courses of most of the upper waters of the
Eastern rivers alternate in rapids, or rifts, and
large, comparatively deep pools (ten to twelve feet)
locally called eddies. At the head of these pools,
where the swift water subsides into the deeper
reaches, and all along the stretches of the river
where the current is somewhat sluggish and the
depth from three to four feet, are found black bass,
particularly when the sun has dipped behind the
western hills and long-drawn shadows are cast upon
the water. The density of these shadows is peculiar
to many sections of the Eastern States where bass-
waters are found. The hills are almost precipitous
to the water's edge, and their thickly wooded sides,
covered with deep-green foliage, intensify the dark-
ness thrown over the streams, which in many places

63

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

are not more than a hundred feet in breadth. With
an environment such as this, the black-bass angler
who uses a fly will always find, the largest and gam-
est fish; and if he extends his outing until night
closes in, his creel will doubtless be filled to reple-
tion, as the bass rise to the feathers at all hours of
the night, be it moonlit or otherwise. At such
times they seem to prefer a dark-colored fly to a
light one, and the similarity can be explained only
upon the theory that the fish mistakes the dark fly,
as it is trailed through the water, for a cricket, upon
which they are in the habit of feeding greedily when
they can get them. It also seems to prove that the
sense of sight in the black bass is more than ordi-
narily keen.

The method of casting the fly for black bass is
the same as that used in trout-fishing, although the
distance cast is generally longer, because of the
more open waters in which bass are found, and
of the fact that the form of the angler can be seen
at a greater distance by the fish, which is more
skittish and more easily alarmed than the trout at
any unusual condition existing on the stream or on
its banks. Another point — which is, however, open
to discussion — is that many anglers for bass allow
the flies, when cast, to sink two or three inches below
the surface, believing that this method is more likely
to attract the fish, as they are not, to the same extent
as the trout, surface-feeders. Again, and more to

64

BLACK BASS AND TROUT COMPARED

the purpose, the main attraction for either bass or
trout lies in the Uf elike action given to the artifi-
cial lure by the manipulation of the rod, through
which the insect is made to appear to be struggling
to escape from the water.

Bass Waters near New York

Near the city of New York there are few waters
where bass can be taken with moderate success by
wading and casting the fly. The upper reaches
of the Passaic and Raritan, and the lower Ramapo,
will yield their quota of fair-sized bass, while the
outlet of Greenwood Lake, within twenty feet of
the sluice-gate, will furnish five or six unusually
game bass in an hour's casting when the flies are
thrown above and on an old eel- weir which is just
below the dam of the lake. There is also quite a
good pool, for three or four bass only, below the
weir; but beyond that the outlet of the lake is too
shallow to aff'ord shelter for bass.

An unusual method is sometimes adopted, es-
pecially at Greenwood Lake. It is particularly
good during the two or three weeks that follow
the legal opening of the season. Entering Green-
wood Lake at the lower or southern end of the rail-
road bridge, which begins at Cooper's Station, the
angler wades out loin-deep and casts parallel with
the shore line, and continues to do so until the first

5 65

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

projecting point of land is reached, where he turns
to the left and follows the shore about a mile to-
ward the lower end of the lake. A dozen or more
of good bass, all small-mouths, are usually taken in
this manner with artificial flies. In the early part
of the season, the big-mouthed bass, which are nu-
merous in the lower portion of the lake, seem to be
absorbed in watching their young on the stumps,
or otherwise engaged, as they are not found, as a
rule, near the shore.

At the junction of the east branch of the Dela-
ware River and the Beaverkill, 150 miles from New
York city, and all along the first-named water to
the Hancock, a distance of about twelve miles,
some of the best fly-fishing for black bass in New
York or any other State can be found. In this
section there are scores of pools and long reaches
where the black bass swarm and rise freely to the
fly, particularly in the early days of the season.
In the Oswego River, a few miles above the city
of the same name, can also be found good fly-
fishing.

66

THE MINOR BASSES (BLACK-BASS
FAMILY)

Points of Difference between Bass and Sunfish

THERE are four additional sunfishes that
come under the general and common
name of bass, — the rock-bass, the war-
mouth bass, the crappie, and the straw-
berry-bass; yet there are only three fresh- water
fishes (one of which is popularly known as white
perch) that are classed by the scientists as true
basses (Serranidce), which classification brings
them closely in anatomical similarity with the Cen-
travchidce, the sunfishes. If you should chance to
catch one of these classed fishes and feel uncertain
as to its being a sunfish or a true bass, by simply
putting your finger in its mouth and feeling its
teeth your doubts will vanish. If it is a true bass
its teeth will be pointed or conical ; if a sunfish they
will be slender and crowded into soft velvety bands.
In addition, the lateral lines of the first-named
fishes do not extend to the tail-fin, that of the
others touch it.

67

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Nine tenths of the above-named fishes that
are taken with hook and Hne and by market
fishermen are pan-fish, although the rock-bass
grows infrequently to a weight of a pound and
a half; the Northern form (and occasionally the
Southern) of the strawberry-bass attaining three
pounds.

The Strawberry 'Bass

There are two species of the strawberry-bass
which are generally considered al Northern and
Southern forms ; yet the matter of habitat seems to
be somewhat confused, for both species are found
in the same geographical range, the calico-bass
{Pomoooys sparoides) being the most numerous in
the North, and the crappie {Pomoooys annularis)
in the South. No fish represents so forcibly the
confusion apt to arise from numerous common or
local names, and from the fact that there are two
distinct species living practically in the same waters,
similar in form and partially so in coloration.

The Calico-Bass

The Northern form, which I have designated as
the calico-bass, is frequently also called grass-bass,
speckled bass, bank-lick-bass, rock-bass, lamplighter,
bitterhead, strawberry-bass, paper-mouth, barfish,

68

THE MINOR BASSES (bLAC K-B ASS FAMILY)

strawberry-perch, razorback, flyfish, chinquapin-
perch, lake shad, silver bass, big-fin bass, goggle-
eye, or goggle-eyed perch.

The Crappie.

The Southern form, known very generally as the
crappie, is also locally called bachelor, New-hght,
Campbellite, sac-a-lait, crapet, tinmouth, bride-
perch, chub, speckled perch, John Demon, and
shad. It must also not be forgotten that nearly
all these names a^-e applied indiscriminately to both
species of this fish. Could confusion be worse con-
founded?

To distinguish these two species at sight is not an
easy matter, particularly when both are taken from
the same water, possess the same physical condi-
tions, and live upon the same food, which so affects
the coloration as to lead to a similarity in hues and
tints. In the crappie (Southern) the profile is more
or less strongly S -shaped, the mouth is very wide,
and the rows of scales on the cheek (a space back
of the eye) are four or five in number.

" Color silvery olive, mottled with dark green, with dark
marks chiefly on the upper part of the body with a ten-
dency to form narrow vertical bars."

The dorsal fin has six spines and fifteen rays. The
calico-bass (Northern) is a much broader fish than

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

the crappie (Southern) ; its profile is not so
S-shaped; its mouth is not so large; its fins are
much higher ; the dorsal fin has seven or eight spines
and fifteen rays; the color is silvery olive, mottled
with clear olive green, with small bunches of dark
mottlings of irregular shape covering the whole
body; and there are six rows of scales on the
cheeks.

I have been careful in differentiating these two
fish, for of all species living in inland waters they
are the most confusing in classification, owing to
their approximate identity in habitat, similarity in
color and markings, and the strong resemblance
of their exterior anatomical make-up.

Neither of them grow much longer than twelve
inches, but both are excellent pan-fish; in fact the
crappie and the calico-bass may be called two of the
great food-fishes of the extensive area west of
the AUeghanies. On many of the Western rivers
and, lakes, whole families may be seen on flat-boats
busily engaged in catching the Campbellite or
lamp-lighter, — two favorite names for the crappie
and calico-bass.

The crappie is not so choice of habitat as the
calico-bass, for he is found in and seems to prefer
the sluggish waters of ponds and bayous, while the
calico is seldom seen in such localities, preferring
cold and clear waters, in which, however, the crappie
is often found. I have been told that not infre-

70

THE MINOR BASSES (bLACK-BASS F A M I L y)

quently one of each species is caught on the same
line and at the same moment.

Both species are caught in great nimihers, as they
bite freely, the favorite lure being the hve minnow,
but angle-worms, crayfish, and artificial flies, when
they are feeding in shallow water, will fill the creel,
even if the fisherman be crude to the core. It is
on record that two anglers, fishing for pleasure,
caught in three days, on hook an^ line, 1,000
crappies weighing from four to twenty ounces
each.

In fishing for both species use very light tackle,
and if the fish runs up to a pound or more Iiandle
him gently and give him elbow-room, for he is said
to have a somewhat tender mouth. Their first surge
when hooked is quite strong and somewhat wild,
but they quickly succumb under the strain of a
taut line. Both species occasionally reach a weight
of three pounds.

«

The Rock-Bass {Ambloplites rupestris)

The rock-bass (which is also known as the redeye,
goggle-eye, and red-eyed perch) is one of the most
delicious of pan-fish; its lack of fighting qualities
when on the rod being thereby condoned. Al-
though its first rush when hooked will frequently
deceive an experienced angler, who is apt to mistake
it for the wild first plunge of a black bass, the

71

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

contest ends then and there. It is an excellent fish
for waters, artificial or otherwise, located near a
household of fish-lovers, as it will thrive in most
waters, especially those having rocky bottoms, and,
as our angling mentor, Seth Green, once said to
me: " It does not take a dancing-master to catch
them." Light tackle and almost any kind of bait
— worms, minnows, pieces of fish, grasshoppers,
and artificial flies, or even a small trolling-spoon —
will prove effective either in trolling or casting.
Yet these bass have the vim and the courage to hold
their own against the black bass, the pickerel, and
other predacious fish. If you have a pond of ^ve
or more acres in area, fed by springs, put in fifty
to one hundred adult rock-bass, and " fish on Fri-
days " and on many other days will be an accom-
plished fact.

The rock-bass spawns in the latter part of May
or in early June. In weight it reaches upward of
two pounds, sometimes rather more, but the aver-
age is not over quarter to half a pound. It is
nearly as prolific as the sunfish, to the family of
which it really belongs. It is a handsomely colored
fish, with a brassy tinge and markings of yellow
and green, with a dark spot at the base of each
scale, which after death becomes more distinct, giv-
ing a striped appearance to the body.

72

THE MINOR BASSES (bLAC K-B ASS FAMILY)

The Warmouth Bass (Chcenobryttus gulosus)

The warmouth bass (also popularly known as
goggle-eye, perch, redeye, sunfish, and bream) is
a sunfish that is shaped very much Uke the rock-
bass, grows to a length of about ten inches, and
seems to prefer lowland streams and sluggish
bayous. It is very numerous, however, in some of
the shallow ponds of the Northwest, and is abun-
dant in those of the South. As a fish for the angler
it is of Uttle importance, and for the table equally
valueless, as it is likely to have a flavor of the
mud bottoms on which it lives.

73

FLY-FISHING

FOR BLACK BASS
IN THE
SCHUYLKILL RIVER

r

The personnel of the three anglers who figure in this little
brochure is an exact portraiture of their individual social
and angling traits. I fished with them all for many years.
The locality is a stretch of the Schuylkill River extending
from Royers^s Ford to Yankee Dam, a distance of about
three miles, and about thirty miles from Philadelphia. Their
fishing-box here described stood on a high bluff, overlooking
the Schuylkill for many miles. The fishing methods of the
angling trio, as recorded for each of them, were identical
with their practices on the stream. They were bosom
friends and had been so for years.

WILLIAM a HARRIS

\

FLY-FISHING FOR BLACK BASS IN
THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

IT was about five o'clock on a pleasant evening
in June when three anglers stepped out of
the cars at Limerick station on the Reading
Railroad, rod-cases in hand, and creels slung
over their shoulders.

A fifteen-minutes walk along the railroad, with
the Schuylkill River fifty feet below, brought them
to the bluff upon which their fishing-box was built,
and a winding ascent of some forty feet landed
them on their camp grounds, sheltered by the pines
from the sun, now fast losing itself behind the foot-
hills in the west.

Throwing his traps upon the grass, the oldest
of them exclaimed: " Boys, it 's just the hour and
just the water for the bass! Hey, Mendy! did you
ever see a better outlook for good sport? "

" I never did, Doc, but once before, and then it
panned out bad enough."

77

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

" How and where was that? " cried Gills, the
youngest of the trio, who was always ready to
dive into anything that savored of paradox or
disputation.

At that moment their man hailed them to supper,
and they passed into the rough but cozy dining-
room and did ample justice to a plain but appe-
tizing camp meal.

"Now, Mendy," said Gills between mouthfuls;
"tell us about that mixed experience of yours,
when, if I, understood you correctly, the conditions
of the wind, the water, and the weather were all
first class, but you didn't do much with the bass.
To be sure, it 's rather unusual with you to fail in
making big catches, so I 'm more anxious to hear
about this little one."

" Give it to us, Mendy," chimed in the Doctor.

"Well, it's a pretty tough yarn, and I don't
think, boys, you '11 believe me; but it 's true, every
word of it.

" It was about this time last summer, and I was
stopping over for a few days with Jim Bean, who
keeps the Pauling House at Perkiomen on the
Schuylkill, and I had a rattling good time with the
bass, catching about twenty-six every day, and not
one of them weighed less than two pounds.

" After fishing one morning with my usual suc-
cess, I laid off for the day, on the principle that
* enough is as good as a feast,' when, late in the

78

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

afternoon, Jim Bean came rushing into my room,
crying out, —

" ' I never seed the bass so thick — they 're jump-
ing down at the dam Uke wildcats on a frolic. Rig
up, old man, and tackle 'em.'

" I could n't resist, and was soon on my way to
the dam, as likely and lovely a stretch of fishing-
water as ever I laid my eyes on. Sure enough, the
bass were there, and they all seemed to be on a
bender, — holding a wake or something like it; for
they were bobbing and jumping in and out of the
water as thick as whirligig beetles on top of it. The
big ones seemed to act lazy-like, as they rolled in
and out like porpoises at play, and the smaller
fellows were as skittish as young kittens. They
would come two or three feet out of the water and
turn somersaults one after another, and I swear
bluntly that I saw one, about fifteen inches long,
make a dash at a swallow that swooped down after
an insect fluttering close to the water. Others,
again, would swim leisurely along in shoals, with
their dorsal fins sticking out of the water, then in a
jiffy down heads and disappear, — all the world
hke a crowd of schooling minnows when fright-
ened by a splash or from some other cause. The
river was, in fact, boiling and foaming with the
antics of those fish, and it took me but a few
moments to joint my rod and get at them.

" Now comes the strangest part of my story. I

79

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

whipped that water with my flies for more than an
hour and a half, and did n't get a rise, much less a
strike. The fish, to be sure, were on the jump,
and would come out of the water every second
almost in droves, behind, in front, and on either
side of my flies, and one old rascal swam up lei-
surely to my point fly, eyed it in a sort of What-are-
you-anyhow? way, then, demurely getting his body
at right angles with it, gave his broad tail a sort of
contemptuous flirt, throwing the fly at least three
feet to the left of the spot where it had been trail-
ing at the foot of a riffle.

" I tried the pools, the rapids, the foam at the
breast of the dam, the quiet water below, and the
swirling rift between the rocks, but all to no eff*ect.
They would not touch my lures. I waded out on
the dam to midstream; I tried every bug in my
fly-book and artificial and live minnows; I let my
flies sink under the water; I skittered them on top
of it; I bought gogglegoys from a bait-boy and
fished with them six feet down in the deep pools;
tried garden worms in a great bunch as big as an
eel-bob ; dipped and trailed with grasshoppers, with
a young toad, a little sunfish, a juvenile bullhead,
here, there, and everywhere, but not a fish did I lure.

" Account for it, boys ! I can't."

" Well, that is rather a tough yarn; but, Mendy,
you should have tried the toodlebug-fly before you
gave it up," said Doc.

80

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

" Or a live mouse," put in Gills.

"Yes, I dare say either would have done the
work," rejoined Mendy; " but, joking apart, boys,
did you ever hear of such an experience? "

"WeU," said the Doctor, " Genio C. Scott
tells something like it in his * Fishing in American
Waters.' He was angling for trout up in Maine,
and the fish were jumping very lively, but would
not touch any of his feathers. He fished for an
hour or so, when, observing that the air was full
of gray gnats, he tried one, and then and there
made a full creel. What were your bass jumping
at, Mendy? Did you notice?"

" Pshaw! Doctor! " indignantly replied Mendy.
" You know I 'm up to all such dodges. I tell
you the bass were jumping at nothing, at least,
all but one: he went for a swallow, but as I did n't
have any such bait in my box, I couldn't try it
on."

" Mendy," said GiUs, " I can back you up, for
one evening this summer, at the mouth of MiU
Creek, I had a similar but not so elaborate an ex-
perience as yours, and I have long since come to
the conclusion that black bass sometimes jump out
of the water, either for the fun of the thing or
from some other cause, probably a hygienic one,
unknown to us."

The camp of our anglers was built upon the edge
of a bold bluff on the Schuylkill River, overlook-

6 81

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

ing the best fishing-grounds for black bass within
fifty miles of Philadelphia. From the porch on
an opportune day, faintly cloudy, warm, and misty,
the fish could, be seen fairly roiling the waters be-
low, and it was not an unusual occurrence for one
of the trio to slip on his water toggery after sup-
per and return at dusk with sufficient black bass
to supply for a day the table of the camp and
that of a neighboring farmer over the hillside.

The personnel of the members of the club was
indicated by their distinct angling methods and
their belief in the Doctor, the president, who was
a well-to-do young physician, hearty in health,
and stocky in body and spirits, with a jolly " How-
are-you? " air about him that went like a sunbeam
into your good graces. His angling hobby was
expressed in his belief, loudly spoken, that a cer-
tain bug was the lure of the season.

" You might catch them with other feathers, but
you always caught them with this one."

It is a fact, certified to by an open-season an-
gler, that the eldest of the club was heard to ex-
claim, one August night, during the camp-fire
talk:

" * A worm at one end and a fool at the other ! '
Ah! old Johnson said so, did he? Well, well! it
may be so; but just tell the old gentleman for
me that rather than not go fishing at all I 'm will"
ing to he the worm"

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

Gills, the secretary, was slight and wiry, with
the nerve, strength, and endurance of an ox; a
ready and willing hand at camp chores; a me-
chanical expert; a rod-maker and fly-featherer;
and a practical, observant fisherman. What he
didn't know about fish, the scaly fellows them-
selves didn't know. He pinned his faith to the
practice of allowing a fish all the line it could
draw from a click-reel, and did not take stock in
the " holding hard and killing quick " methods of
many anglers.

Mendy, the treasurer, had the quaUties of good
fellowship and intense unreliability on the subject
of fish and fishing so blended that you were apt
alternately to forget the one in the outcrop of the
other. For a moment or two you would be de-
lighted and the next appalled at his daring men-
dacity, wondering meanwhile at your sufferance,
and still more surprised at your condonation of the
extensions that fell from his lips more rapidly than
raindrops from a storm-cloud; yet, with it all, he
was an angler in every sense of the term. Strange
to note, he was scrupulously truthful on every
other subject except fish and fish-catching.

The midsimimer evening came slowly on, with
a favorable outlook. The rays of the sun still
slanted down over the river, with here and there
spots of shadow, made by the occasional elms on
the western bank. A fitful breeze was blowing,

83

THE basses: fres h~w ater and marine

just heavy enough to ripple the pools, and way-
ward enough to try the patience and judgment
of the angler as to when and where the most likely
casts should be made, in which dilemma, however,
he was aided by a scud of leaden clouds, chasing
each other just above the western horizon, which
were sufficiently dense to throw transient patches
of shade upon the water.

The face of the river was as clear and its depths
as pure as a mirror, vnth a rise of about twelve
inches during the preceding twenty-four hours,
caused by brief but heavy rains in the upper coun-
tries bordering upon the water.

It is an amiable specialty (and a pleasant and
favorable one for anglers) of the Schuylkill River
never to get roiled, except upon sufficient cause.
To make it so requires a heavy freshet, or a con-
tinuous rain for days, and it was often noted by
the club that the lower river, below Phoenixville,
would frequently be very muddy, while at the
camp, only six miles above, the water was crystal
in its color and purity.

The Doctor, somewhat afraid of rheumatism,
was the only one of the three who wore a wad-
ing-suit ; the others donned their last winter's cast-
off clothing, woollen drawers and undershirts, with
woollen stockings coming over the knees, and
Government brogans thickly studded with hob-
nails.

84

Fact and Fiction

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

Gills varied slightly from Mendy in his rig, by
having on a pair of breeches buckled just below
the knee-joint, and made out of trousers that
had done good every-day service for a year or two.
The Doctor had on a pair of fishing-shoes made
to order, and fitting loosely, but aptly, as the chaf-
ing of an ill-fitted shoe would soon scrape a hole
in the waterproof material.

They each had on such old coats and headgear
as came most handy to them. They were not dan-
dies, either at home or on the stream. They were
hard-working, earnest, ardent rodsters, who knew
that a full creel meant work, and skilled labor at
that; that it was a matter of muscle and nice judg-
ment; and that a keen eye, a quick nerve, and
delicate handling were the essential gifts of a suc-
cessful fly-caster, and that these qualities did not
centre in the foot or body garb of the wading
angler.

Every fruitful spot or likely pool, rapid, or
eddy^of the Schuylkill for a mile above and below
camp was known to these fishermen; but as each
place was changeable in its outcrop, there was never
any difficulty among the members of the club as
to the choice of grounds when they chanced to
fish together. Indeed, as it happened on this occa-
sion, they would angle down stream in company
— one near the left bank, one on the right, and
the third in midstream; and it wd-s a beautiful and

85

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

novel sight to see these anglers advancing down
the river like a line of skirmishers, with three arched
rods, curling lines, and lures, spotting the lip of
an eddy, the outer curl of a riffle, or the quiet
water lying just beyond a baby boulder, with a
sort of automatic precision of distance and move-
ment that was as wonderful in its mechanism as
it was pleasant to look upon.

The river lay about sixty feet below the " fish-
ing-box," and was reached by a path which wound
under a culvert built by the railroad company over
the little stream that glittered down the ravine to
the south of the camp. At the spot where this
brook plunged over the rocks into the river, the
bass in midsunmaer could always be found feeding
upon the small dace and other minnows that lay
in the shallows at its mouth; and it was here that
our anglers always made their first essay upon the
bronze-backers.

Having adjusted their rods, soaked their casts,
and in other diverse ways completed their bodily
and fishing rigs, they started for the river, and
in a few moments were abreast of the mouth of
the small stream before mentioned. They had de-
cided, before starting out, to fish down stream in
company, but as Mendy was slightly in advance,
and the spot was tempting, he made a cast across
the widest part of the little bay, and the response
came quickly to his army-worm in the form of a

86

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

six-inch bass, retrieved rapidly, carefully unhooked,
and, while yet alive, deposited again in the river.

The members of the club were not pot-fishers,
and never " fished for count," albeit they were not
sticklers as to numbers when caught of proper size
and legitimately, — on a light rod and a feathered
lure. They could always find mouths to eat their
extra catches, both at home and in the adjacent
village; and, knowing this, they never failed to
basket every good fish, being aware from experi-
ence that only about once in many outings could
the bass be found thoroughly in humor.

The Doctor used only two flies, one of which
was that peculiar combination of feathers known
as the toodlebug, and the other was a gray and
black hackle, tied palmer-fashion, bunchy and
thick, with the hackle laid well down to the bend
of the hook. The toodlebug is always used as a
point, tail, stretcher, or end fly (all anglers know
that these four terms are synonymous), as it was
a winged fly, and, under the tension of the cur-
rent, approached in appearance pretty closely to
that of the live insect. These two flies were at-
tached to the leader, always nine feet long, at a
distance of three feet from each other.

Gills made his own flies, and rare good ones
they were. He used three, and believed in bright
colors — big bunches of them — tied on a No. 4
Sproat hook. He had a special fly which he swore

87

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

by so long as the fish were rising, but no longer.
At such times he had a dry way of announcing
his belief that one fly was as good as another —
when the fish had stopped biting. His cast was
made as follows: hand-fly, coachman; dropper,
black palmer; point or tail fly, big Injun.

In this connection it is opportune to state that
the club decided at one of its earliest camp-fire
talks to adopt the above mode of designating the
flies attached to the leader, — what is generally
known as a " cast of flies." They were compelled
to have a uniform nomenclature, as much confu-
sion had been created, even among themselves, by
the terms " first dropper " and " second dropper,"
which many anglers use indiscriminately to desig-
nate alternately the middle fly and the one nearest
the rod-tip,

" Heaven knows," said the Doctor one evening,
when the subject was talked over, " there 's enough
confusion already existing about field and water
sports: such as conflicting fish- and game-laws
and the almost hourly changes, by zoologists, —
particularly ichthyologists, — of the specific names
of game-fish and game-birds. Take the very fish
we are going after — the black bass : we find that
within the last five years he has been a gristies, a
Micropterus, a salmoides, a pallidus, a dolomiei,
and heaven knows what! Do let us try, boys, to
get at what we are talking about, so that we can

88

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

understand each other at least, on this cast busi-
ness. I say that the " hand " fly is the one nearest
my hand; the "point" fly is the one I point at
the spot where I think a fish lies ; and the " drop-
per " (for want of a better name, as all flies are
droppers when cast), the middle fly. What say
you, boys?"

"Agreed! Agreed!" and the matter then and
there was settled.. May all good, sensible anglers
go and do likewise.

Mendy used but one fly, and gave the following
as his reason therefor:

" I have never caught, except on rare occasions,
more than a single bass at a time, and more than
once I have lost a good fish which had taken my
middle fly, was nearly exhausted, and well-nigh
landed, when with a splurge and a quick snap an-
other and bigger one struck my point fly, which
was made by the game fight of the first fish to
zig-zag across the current more like the struggles
of a live bug than any simulated motion I could
give the artificial one through the medium of my
rod. No, boys, you can't catch more than one
good fish on one hook, say I, and I '11 have none
of your triplex casts."

" Bosh! " said Gills. " I Ve caught two bass at
a time repeatedly, and if there is a grain of reason
about your protest, why, the more danger of los-
ing, the more skill in saving. I 'd like to strike

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

three on a single cast — two-pounders each — this
evening, and if I lose them all, the glory of such
a strike would last me to brag of and enjoy for a
month, if I did n't basket another scale for a longer
time than that."

" Boys, hold up ! " interposed the Doctor. " It 's
mainly a question of strength in your tackle. Look
at this gut out of which my leader and fly-snoods
are made. It has stood a dead strain of nine
pounds, and no two fish that scull the Schuylkill
can get that much out of it, — that is if I handle
my reel and rod right. In fifteen casts in forty-
five minutes, down there in the little bay below
Polly's Island — you can see the place plainly be-
tween those two maples — I caught nine fish that
weighed over seventeen pounds, and six of those
fish were caught two at a time on just such gut as
this, that has neither a flaw nor a fleck in its whole
nine feet. Mendy, you are wrong for once, old
fellow; stick to your miraculous scores and hitch
on another bug to that mist-colored leader of yours,
which, judging from its look, is strong enough
to hold a twenty-pound salmon, always supposing
that your hand and arm are at the landing-end
of it."

" Come, come! " cried Gills. " If we stand here
talking any longer, we '11 lose our best chances at
the bass. Do you intend. Doctor, to take a turn
at them by moonlight? I see that the clouds have

90

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

chased each other out of sight, and we will have
a beautiful night and a full moon."

" Yes, Gills, my idea is to fish down to the point
of Quail Island, take a rest, and then give them
a haze * by the light of the moon ' on the way back
to camp."

" Agreed," said the others, and the three anglers
stepped into the stream.

At this moment the wind freshened and whirled
around the bend of the river in fitful gusts, strik-
ing them upon the "starboard quarter," as the
sailor has it. This induced casts to the right, and
called for a strong wrist movement in order to lay
the line well out athwart the breeze, which would
sometimes catch the flies in their forward cast and
toss them upward, often holding them there sus-
pended and floating, feather-like, until a slight lull
would land them gently as a snowflake falling
upon the ruffled river.

The Doctor was to wade straight across the
stream, some 200 feet wide, to fish its right bank;
Gills took the left side, and Mendy chose mid-
stream.

To a rod expert the direction and wayward na-
ture of the wind was nervy and exciting. To a
bungler it was confusion and failure. But the
Doctor was a master. Holding the rod in his right
hand, just above the reel, with the thumb extended
and the fingers closely but not rigidly clasped, his

91

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

cast of flies being held meantime in his left hand,
and the rod being nearly perpendicular, by an ap-
preciable movement of the wrist from left to right
he gave the tip of his rod a flirt, and the line and
leader curled backward, lengthening out behind
him. Then, without a turn of the eye (it was
intuition that told him that his rear cast was
ended), he reversed the movement of the wrist,
springing the rod to the front, and the flies, quiv-
ering, fell within an inch of the spot which his
judgment had told him was a likely one.

The Doctor ignored the traditionary teachings
of the craft, by his disbelief in the " forty-five
degree " angle doctrine.

" Herbert, Morris, Scott, and the rest of them,"
he once said during a camp-fire talk, " may have
found it all right; but, boys, I think that many of
our angling lessons, as taught in the books, are
laid down on the principle of foUow-your-leader.
Walton led, and the crowd of moderns followed.
Take this ' angle of forty-five degrees ' in hand
and put it in practice. Nine times out of ten your
backward cast of fifty feet will plump your flies,
when handled on a ten-foot rod, into the water
behind you. And in the forward cast, with your
rod at that angle, ten to one you will recover it,
at least twenty degrees, in order to prevent the
line looping and falling with a great splash into
the water before your flies touch it.

92

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

" No, no, boys," he continued, " the whole mat-
ter lies in the nervy wrist movement, with the clear
brain and the loving heart behind it. Mendy,
neither you nor Gills can tell me how you give
that effective quivering motion to your rod. A
turn of the wrist, say you! Bosh! say I. Your
brain wiUs it, and the motive power goes right
down that good right arm of yours into the wrist,
and then up and out that split bamboo, through
each thread of your braided line, until it culmi-
nates in the point fly; not ending even there, I
sometimes think, but rather in the tough upper lip
of the bass, as you strike him."

" Doc is off! Not a word,, Mendy, or else he '11
play this tune for an hour or two," said Gills.

" This ' forty-five degree ' theory is all very well,
boys," continued the Doctor, " on a trout-stream
overhung with brush or forest growth; that is, if
the same angle of the rod is used twice the same
day on such water (which I doubt), where you are
forced to use a twenty-foot cast, and to sweep it
ofttimes parallel to the surface of the stream, or,
as I once saw a green one do, to loop your line
into a roll like a sailor's heaving-line, and toss it
into the foam of a rapid, hoping that the current
would land it in a pool where * a big trout ' should
lurk if he knows himself well. Don't look so skep-
tical, Mendy. I 'm in earnest about this, and I
repeat that no man can ever be a fly-fisher unless

93

THE basses: fres h~w ater and marine

his heart aids his brain and muscles. Take Tuck
for an example. You both know him. His head
is clear on all anghng points, and his fingers are
deft at dressing a fly. He is full of effective pros
and cons. He has got the wrist movement down
to a turn, and can show it beautifully on a broom-
stick or cane; but the knack leaves him just as
soon as he steps into the stream, and his flies fall
kerslosh — all in a bunch — when he attempts to
cast; and with all this he can talk us all adrift
about how to do it; yet yoii both know that he is
the veriest bungler that ever worried a pool.
What's the reason? Simply this: The man has
gone into angling just as a swell goes into a club.
It 's the thing, you know! But his heart is not in
it, and his nerves and muscles have n't got enough
loving electricity about them."

It was now about half -past six, and the sun still
shone over the river, except on the right bank,
where it was shaded by a dense growth of trees;
hence the Doctor had the advantage of position.
Mendy, in the middle of the stream, had a show
at the edge of the shadows, while Gills fished in
the broad glare, yet aided materially by the scurry-
ing gusts that swept the surface of the pools.

Across the river, starting at the point at which
the three anglers entered it, a line of rocks ex-
tended, which at half -stage of the stream were

94

F L y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

covered with water, except at intervals of about
twenty feet, where the water swept between them,
making a series of swift currents that swirled down
stream for some distance. At the tail of these
channel-ways, and in the still water and the curl
of the eddies behind the protruding rocks, experi-
ence told our friends were Ukely places for the
bass to He.

" The largest black bass that ever struck my
fly," said the Doctor, " did so at Flat Rock Dam.
You know the spot well. Gills, for we have had
some glorious sport together at the dam, and Tuck
once told me that he believed you knew each peb-
ble at the bottom of those pools by its front name;
and you too, Mendy, as I remember you flushed
and worried over your maiden eff^ort at fly-casting
some ten years ago, standing on that big rock that
reaches a line level with the breastwork of this
same dam. Well, my mammoth bass — it must
have been a four-pounder — rose to my point fly in
the rush of that surging rapid, the water of which
came dashing over the end of the rocks of the big
pool just below the dam on the eastern side of
the river, the half of which is jammed by the rocks
and the bank into a space not more than ten feet
wide, making a rapid for about twenty-five feet.

" I had alternately waded and jumped from rock
to rock until I reached the shallows in midstream,
then waded down, with ankles scarcely covered,

95

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

to the old boulder that stands, sentinel-like, on the
upper and western side of this rapid I speak of.
Climbing up, I perched myself on the extreme top
of the rock, un jointed my limbs, and stretched
them out with a feeling of comfortable ease and
unrestraint to be appreciated only by a wading
fisherman who for some hours has been feet- fum-
bling on the stony and uneven bed of a river which
is made up of deep holes and a ten-horse-power
current.

" After resting a moment or two I arranged
my cast, intending to whip the eddies made by
the boiling waters on the lower edges of the rapid.
I had never as yet had any luck in the strength
of a stream such as this, and wisely, I thought
then, chose the sides and tail end of it. I looped
on a large point fly, to which, in the paucity of my
knowledge of the names of flies then as now, I
had given the name of hornet. You will remember
it, Gills, if you can recall our last trip to Perkio-
men Dam, when we saw the hornets flying around
us, and occasionally falling into the water, where the
eager bass soon m.ade use of them. You will, per-
haps, remember that we also made use of a tolerable
imitation, a golden and brown bug we found in our
fly-books. Well, I put on the same fly on this occa-
sion, and a big gray hackle along with it.

" Tossing my line carelessly into the current,
more for the purpose of getting the kinks out of

96

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

the leader than with the thought of a fish rising
to the flies, to my astonishment I saw a black bass
plunge across and slightly up the rapid, with a
sweep like a flash at my point fly, but missing it.
When he attempted to strike, his back for several
inches came out of the water, and as the sun was
shining brightly I could distinctly see his outline
and length. Boys, he was a whopper! The larg-
est I ever saw rise to a fly in any waters outside
of Lake Champlain.

" I was considerably flurried and excited, but
cooled down in a moment, and made a cast, point-
ing my ender just below the spot where the bass
would probably reach and pause after his sweep
at my flies. It was just at the outer edge of the
swift current, where concentric and enlarging rings
on the surface told me that there was still water
below. My 'hornet' no sooner struck the eddy
than it was struck by the bass.

"Of course, boys, I had a heavy and sweating
time of it. The old rascal never came out of the
wet at all, but despite my efi^orts that nose of his
was pointed all the time at the boiling rapid, and
at last his body went along with his nose. I
scrambled down the rock as best I could, — in fact,
I slid down flat on my back, — and gave him his
own way. Down stream he went, with just enough
tension on him to hold the barb of the hook tightly
imbedded in his jaw until he reached mid-channel,

7 97

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

where the current was comparatively sluggish.
Once there he seesawed from right to left, and
left to right, for several minutes, until at last,
struck, or rather inspired, — for it was inspiration,
intellect, anything but instinct, — by that last life-
saving idea which I have seen exercised only by two-
pounders and upward, my bass went down "

" And sulked," put in Gills.

"Sulked!" cried the Doctor. "Not he; there
was no sulk in him. Down he went until I felt that
he had got to bed-rock. Then commenced a series
of tugs or jerks, — not angry ones, but regular
in time and method, each successive one getting a
little stronger than the last. It seemed to me that
he had found a hole just big enough for his body
between two stones, and that he had. braced himself
with his pectoral fins to bear upon the light gear.
At first I simply held him taut; then, fearing
for my tackle, I let up on him at each tug; but
this method,, I at last felt, would be a losing game
for me, as the jerks grew in strength with an
arithmetical progression that alarmed me. Some-
thing would give way, I was sure, if I did not
bring matters to a focus at once, and I brought
them. Putting a sturdy pull upon the fish, as ob-
stinate in its strain as he was in his tugs, I reeled
in, inch by inch, until I actually dragged him from
his lair; but unfortunately it was a poor day for
dragging, for, with a vigorous flirt of his tail and

98

Landing

F L y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

a figure-eight contortion of his body, he actually
tore the hook out of his mouth, and it came back
to me with a piece of flesh clinging to it.

" Boys, what do you think about the way I
handled that fish? Was I right or wrong in my
treatment of him? "

Gills promptly responded:

" No, Doc, you did n't use him right. There are
but two ways of treating such a rascal; one is to
wear him out by patience, just as a mule-driver
does a sulking animal, — sits down and eats his
dinner, the mule's obstinacy usually winding up
with the driver's last mouthful; or, if that does
not answer the purpose, still continue the mule-
driver's methods, — pull the mule backward by the
tail, he 's bound to go ahead. Just sq with the
bass ; chuck a small boulder behind him, and he 's
sure to jump into daylight."

" Nonsense," said Mendy, " you are both adrift.
Doc, you should have held that bass and never let
him reach bottom."

"Nonsense back in your teeth, Mendy; I
couldn't hold him."

" Then you should n't fish for the likes of him.
A man who goes a-fishing for black bass with
tackle that won't hold a five-pounder is about on
a par with the man who roils a pool with three
thrashing flies bunched ' buzz.' "

This last remark started Gills on the warpath.

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

" It was n't the tackle, Mendy, that failed to
hold Doc's fish; it was the fish's lip. Moreover,
I never caught twenty-three bass, each weighing
two pounds, on a single fly in a forenoon's fish, as
you did at Perkiomen ; but I will wager our man's
wages for a month against a nine- foot leader, that
my bunchy palmers, the tail one particularly, which
leaves a wake behind it like that of a stern- wheel
steamer, will catch more bass in a given time than
that simple spider fly you brag about."

" The bet is taken and Saturday next the day,"
cried, Mendy; and our anglers at last went to work
down stream, whipping the choicest spots of the
most beautiful bass river of America.

The subject of the mental and emotional ca-
pacity of fishes is the cause of much curious
speculation among angling naturalists, who do not
willingly consent that fishes should be placed upon
a plane of intelligence below that of insects.

The belief that fishes possess qualities which reach
a standard beyond the instinct of self-preservation
has recently gained in strength and interest, owing
to the increased facilities that fish-culture has given
us for observing their habits. Seth Green, the
Nestor of fish-culture in America, believed that
fish can talk to each other, and the idea is by no
means an extravagant one.

It is conceded, by naturalists that certain insects

100

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

and many of the lower animals have the power
of imparting mutual intelligence by processes un-
known to us. The httle ants hob-nobbing with
each other, the cooing dove wooing his mate vocally,
the hen clucking her brood under her protecting
wings, are familiar instances of vocal intercourse
among insects and birds; and no one who has
watched the minnows of a shallow pool, or those
in an aquarium, has failed to see equally sure in-
dications that fishes have a way of their own in
communicating with each other. They dart up to
one another, put noses together for a moment, and
then dart off again with an air as much as to say,
"AU right!"

Old ^schylus, in one of his poems, describes
many fishes as " the voiceless daughters of the
unpolluted one " ; but many of the ancients and
moderns testify to the utterances of fish. Pliny,
Ovid, and others tell us of the scarus and its won-
derful powers of intonation. In the days of old
Rome, certain fish were said to have a regular
language, " low, sweet, and fascinating," and the
Emperor Augustus pretended to understand their
words. We have all heard, or heard of, the vari-
ous sounds of the gurnards, the booming of the
drumfish, and the grunts of the croaker, the weak-
fish, and others. The grunt-fish of the Gulf of
Mexico is said to express discontent and pain, and
when touched with a knife, fairly shrieks, and when

101

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

dying makes moans and sobs disagreeably human.
Take it for all in all, we cannot but believe that
fish have the power of making intelligent commu-
nication one to the other, and we have frequently
noted, or thought we did, a kind of knowing look
about their eyes which led us to credit them with
meaning unutterable things.

The scientists tell us that in many fishes no trace
exists of an organ of hearing; that the tympanum,
its cavity, and the external parts of the ear, are
entirely absent; that in others this organ is only
imperfectly developed, and that in the remaining
few — such as the shark, the shad, the herring, and
others — there is an odd connection between the
organ of hearing and the air-bladder. With these
crude facts before him, the ichthyologist leaves the
angler to work out the answer to the question,
" Can fish hear? " which is a most practical one to
the careful angler in his pursuit of the educated
game-fish of our inland waters.

Fish do not seem to hear sound originating in
the air. Place a cannon upon an india-rubber car-
riage, sufficiently large and elastic to deaden all
concussion upon the ground, and Mr. Fish, after
the gun has been fired, will be as placid in his pool
as a gourmand after dinner. But step as lightly
as one may upon the margin of a stream, and the
fish will scatter Uke shot from the near shallows
where they are feeding or frolicking. The larger

J^ 102

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

the fish and the lesser the depth of water, the
greater and wider the scattering will be.

Security, with them, seems to lie in the relative
depth of the pools, as the step of the angler dis-
turbs them only in a foot or two of water. A
black bass lying in a hole five feet deep, close to the
bank, is undisturbed by any ordinary concussion.

Again, any concussion originating in or upon the
bed of the river or below the bass does not appear
to disturb them. This was verified by Mendy one
day in the case of a large bass, which he saw lying
motionless within a foot of a stake to which the
camp boat was tied. The water was about four
feet deep. Mendy struck several successive hard
blows upon the top of the stake, which protruded
about two feet out of the water, without causing
a flirt of the fin in the fish below.

Our anglers at once concluded that the bass
could not hear the noise made by their footsteps
upon the bed of the river when they were wading
in the stream, and as the jolly fins (" jolly for the
fins," parenthesized Gills) could not hear their con-
versation originating out of the water, they in-
dulged in social chat and pleasantries whenever
inclined, taking care, however, to be always on the
safe side, by not becoming too boisterous in their
discussions or hilarity.

" Boys," said Mendy, on one occasion, " what
fools these bait-fishers are to put their comfort in

103

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

a straight- jacket when they go a-fishing! Some
old fellows won't let you whisper in the boat, and
are as querulous and overcautious as my grand-
father was whenever he had an attack of the gout.
He would lie flat on his back in bed, with his gouty
foot propped up on a pillow laid across a chair,
placed bottom upward, and in this position would
centre and strain his eyes and fears upon the knob
of the chamber door, which was no sooner turned
than he would cry out with prospective pain,
' Watch out for my foot.'

" It is just so with these bait-fishers. A motion
of your lip, although voiceless, and they would cry
out, if they dared, ' Watch out for my coming
bite ! ' They are right in thinking that the least
motion of the boat is apt to frighten the fish, but
' I won't go home till morning,' by a dozen bass
voices, is less disturbing to a pool or a bank than
the twisting of a toe on the bottom of a boat."

The Doctor continued: " A fish can see in water,
but not when out of it. The shad.ow of a split-
bamboo rod thrown across a pool will create in a
fish the same skittishness as would be caused by
an elephant browsing upon the bank.

"A passing cloud over a shallow and pellucid
pool protects the angler, and puts another fin or
two in his creel, where, a moment before, each cast
drove the fish to deeper pools or behind protect-
ing rocks."

104

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

Gills said that fish were like ostriches in some
of their ways, notably in that they seemed to
feel safe when their noses were hidden behind
a tuft of grass or in the crevices of a sunken
rock.

" Fish facing the sun, and forget not this rule,
even when the twilight is over the waters, by cast-
ing toward the west," was the law of our anglers,
enacted by their knowledge, based upon experience,
of the eif ect of shadows upon the wary fins, which
are more startled by unusual appearances on the
surface of a pool than they are by strange things
below.

The Doctor then said that, vision and hearing
in fishes being the senses most concerning the
angler in his aquatic sports, those next in impor-
tance are smell and taste. The possession of these
by fish seems to be a disputed point. They evi-
dently have taste in a modified degree, as they
will reject' the artificial lure if the barb or the
hook is not immediately imbedded in their flesh,
but, on the other hand, they will take a leather or
rubber imitation of the natural bait with as much
gusto as a live minnow or bug; hence, the ques-
tion is a seesaw one.

" Of course, among angling naturalists, the gift
of senses is, or at least they think it should be,
confined to game-fish, as they cannot imagine any
dispensation of Providence that places the ignoble

105

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

catfish or the snaky eel upon the same plane with
the salmon, trout, or bass.

" Fish, no doubt, in common with other animals,
have the instinct of danger developed almost to ^
the quality of reason; and it is no bar to the
truth of this to argue that, because a fish will take
the bait with half-a-d,ozen hooks in his jaws, it
follows a brutish appetite that is blind to danger;
for, look you, be ye an angler or a butcher, that
stomach of yours is death to you every day of
your life: that smoking dish, be it red herring
or canvas-back duck, is causing you to make rapid
strides graveward, and you know it; and yet you
gorge yourself every day upon your favorite dish.

" It ill becomes a man to argue that because an
animal cannot control its appetite it has not the
lordjy gift of reason. To sum up:

" Can a fish taste? Certainly: he spits out, if
he can, an artificial bait.

"Can a fish smell? Aye, there's the rub; yet
why the anointed lures so prized by old anglers
and many modern ones, and why does a fresh
natural bait kill the most fish?

"This fact, however, is sure: fish are suscep-
tible to anger and jealousy; for we have seen them
fight, and we all know how tiger-like in jealous
combat salmon and trout are on their nuptial
beds."

The evening's fish of the club had commenced

106

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

SO tardily, that it was confined to the stretch of
the stream bounded up and down by the two pre-
viously named water-marks, the lower one of which
was only a distance of 300 yards from the camp.

Mendy, fishing in the centre, and standing some
twenty feet back of a large rock known as " The
Daddy," on account of its great size, was the first
to get a rise. His fish was a pounder, known at
once to be such, not only from its size, but by
the vivacity of its strike.

Mend,y would never listen to the accepted theory
that bass could be found and caught with more
certainty by allowing the flies to sink an inch or
two below the surface. Whenever the fact was
announced he would bury it under a contemptu-
ous " Bosh ! " and always persisted in skittering
his fly over the water. He did not vary his prac-
tice on this occasion, and was quickly greeted with
a rise, the like of which is only an occasional oc-
currence among bass.

The fish, in its eagerness, missed the lure, and
came, trout-like, at least a foot out of the water,
turning a complete somersault, returning head
down into the stream again.

A careful eye, watching Mendy just then, would
have been delighted and somewhat astonished to
see him, then and there, go back upon his em-
phatic "Bosh!" as he lulled his skittered fly into
a passive float, allowing the sweep of the current

107

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

to carry the single fly slightly below the surface.
His reward came at once, for Mr. Bass, as he re-
turned to his own element, doubtless paused for a
moment to dwell upon the wonders of the foreign
one from which he had just returned, — paused
just long enough to allow Mendy's tempting bug
to drift under his nose, and then struck swift, sure,
and safe.

" It 's only a mite of a fellow, boys," said
Mendy, as he quickly brought the bass within reach
of his left thumb, which he inserted in the gill,
basketing the fish without flurry or waste of time.

Gills by this time had his hands full with a two-
pounder, which had struck with such vim that a
sort of wake was made behind him, seaming the
pool, across which the fish was surging with diago-
nal sweeps from right to left and vice versa.

" Boys, he is an unco' dandy," cried Gills, and
the fish justified the remark under the rodster's
pecuhar method of handling, for he went at
pleasure, hither, thither, and everywhere. It will
be remembered that one of Gills's crotchets was to
allow a bass all the line he wanted, provided that
the strength of the fish was sufficient to draw the
line from the clicked reel. Now this bronze-backer
was just the fish to do Gills's theory to a turn, and
he buckled down to it as if with a foreknowledge
of the latitude of range permitted by his oppo-
nent's favorite method.

108

An Enthusiast

^

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

A few moments, and the bass won. Making a
bee-line for a boulder the gray head of which
cropped out of the stream, showing the angles
below, the fish circled around the sharp corners,
and then, somewhat restricted by the line, came
half-sideways a few inches into the air, and fell
back again with a flop and a half -hitch around its
tail into the water, having in its jaw a bunched
palmer and four feet of leader, streaming, horn-
pout-like, dpwn the current faster than the ex-
hausted fish could follow it.

It has been said that bass, when struck and
played, will always head down stream when they
escape from the hook, and we have verified this
saying over and over again.

Gills was by no means flurried over his loss, for
he simply remarked:

" Just as likely as not another big fellow hitched
on to the dropper when the first one came out of
the wet; and you know, boys, with a big fish in
the air, and another big one seesawing the liver
out of the leader around a rock, from below, —
why no tackle can stand it," — and he sat down
on " The Daddy " to repair damages.

The Doctor fished the shallows on the left side
of the river with judgment, but without an im-
mediate rise.

Over the bank, and extending into the stream,
the lengthening shadows were falling with clear-

109

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

cut yet changing outlines as the foliage of the
trees waved to and fro, " the gloom of the even-
tide " reaching out for thirty yards from the shelv-
ing and grassy margin of the river.

Our anglers chose the dense patches of shade,
giving preference to the little eddies that whirled
around the miniature rocks which here and there
dotted the broad reach of the quiet waters ex-
tending from the " Sentinels " down to the " Old
Fish Weir."

Midway between those two water-marks a few
small boulders were tumbled together, over and
through which the water purled and foamed into
baby rifts, which were soon lost in the gentle flow
of the river. Just at this point a pebbly bar, its
bold head forming a little island, cropped out from
the surface, baring its front to the flowing waters,
which, with dying swirls induced by the rapids
above, swept around its stony sides. Within a
yard or two of its outer end the flash of a feed-
ing bass and the sheen of a herd of skipping
minnows caught the keen eye and ear of the
Doctor, and quicker than thought his favorite fly
lit searchingly a few feet behind the fish.

Behind the fish — because a hungry bass, when
dashing into shallow water after the frightened fin-
gerlings, returns to the deeper pool instanter — he
lingers not a moment, but back again to his lair
until his prey gathers once more upon the shoals.

110

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

We have often seen an old bass, when feeding,
dart among a crowd of minnows where the water
was so shallow that his great dorsal fin was per-
force entirely out of the water; and more than
once, when fishing over the stretch of the bar near
Quail Island, the Doctor had observed large bass
working their way for yards, with side fins and
muscles, where the river had a depth of only a
few inches.

Knowing this retreating habit of the bass when-
ever deeper water was accessible, the Doctor deftly
and quickly threw his flies about three feet to the
rear of the spot where he had last seen the body of
the fish splash into the water. He had not only
dropped his flies behind, but also allowed them to
sink an inch or two below the surface, knowing
full well that bass would not make two immedi-
ately consecutive rises. His caution and skill were
promptly rewarded.

The fish, doubtless with his appetite sharpened
by the delicacy of the silver shiner just swallowed,
struck with such boldness that the Doctor, who had
hitherto invariably handled his strikes in silence,
cried out:

"Mark! Mark!"

His experience and memories of the past de-
lights of the field probably prompted this invol-
untary cry, as not many years ago, before his eye
had been dazed by the sweep of a covey, he was

111

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

one of the gifted few in a stubble-field or an
alder-swamp.

Mendy and Gills were startled by his voice, and
at once paused in their downward casts, looking
toward the Doctor, who had hailed them with an
addendum :

" Boys, he 's one of the dandies of the old
Potomac River stock," alluding to the original
source of the black bass of Pennsylvania rivers,
all of which came from the source he named.

"A five-pounder, if an ounce," he nervously
added, with flushed face and tremulous voice.

" Gills," said Mendy in a low voice, " Doc will
lose that fish; his nerves are all unstrung."

" No! no! Mendy, I Ve seen him before in just
such a quiver; outside he is an aspen leaf, inside
as nervy as an iron bar. Watch him."

As Gills spoke, the Doctor was seen to edge
himself, inch by inch, toward the middle of the
stream, the fish meanwhile bearing all before him,
but not rapidly clicking the reel, for the angler's
thumb pressed the line closely against the rod, and
it went out with a measured click-click-click, not
mth a continuous whirr and whirl, but inch by
inch, just as the bronzed rascal earned it.

Gills's heart was in his mouth, for the Doctor's
method of handling the fish was so opposite to
his own in theory and practice that for his life
he could not help breaking out with:

119

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

" Doctor, for heaven's sake let up on him! He '11
smash things if you don't! "

"Bosh!" came the reply, as the fisherman was
seen to turn the tip of his rod toward mid-stream,
its butt outward and downward, with the yielding
bamboo arched and quivering under the strain.

Meanwhile the ceaseless click-click-chck showed
that the bass still held the upper hand.

Foot by foot came the Doctor nearer to deep
water, the fish getting farther and farther away,
with about twenty yards of the reel line going
down stream with him. It was ten yards more
than the Doctor ever yielded before to a bass.

Gaining a depth sufiicient to play the coppery
giant beyond the danger of rock or rapid, the
Doctor snubbed his fish sharply. The response
came quickly by a surge across stream, swift as
an arrow from a bow, straining line, leader, and
rod to the utmost tension; but the ball of the
angler's thumb contained so delicate a nerve, or
pulse, trained to danger for use on such occasions
as this, that, . whenever breakage signals were
aboard, the Kne glided through the rod-rings with
just sufficient restraint upon it to curb the will
of the fighting fish, and take from it, thread by
thread, its wild strength of muscle.

Surge — surge — and surge again, but still
in mid-water, for not even the tip of the dorsal
fin glinted along the twilight shadows that were

8 113

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

now rapidly deepening over the bosom of the
river.

The Doctor, as cool now as the freshening even-
ing breeze, held his prey well in hand until the
bass resorted to the usual dodge of the weighty
ones by settling deeper until it reached the bottom
and stayed there.

The Doctor knew that this trick meant recuper-
ation, and that when the fight was renewed his fish
would contest every inch with nearly all its origi-
nal skill and vigor.

What was to done? Strike the hook deeper into
the sulker's jaw? The only response was a suc-
cession of tugs from the fish, which could be com-
pared only to the sturdy, persistent jerks that a
dog gives when you attempt to take a cloth or a
rope from its mouth.

Startle it with a pebble or two thrown into the
pool?

The bass only settled itself deeper and deeper
until it reached bed-rock and stayed there.

But one resource was left, and the Doctor availed
himself of it. He put his tackle to the test, and
dragged the bronze-backer upward by main force.
No sooner did the fish feel the tightening strain
than it sprang into the air, but, being skilfully
met, could do no more than surge across and
across the pool in desperate efforts to free itself. ,

Having tried the strength of his tackle, and

114

F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER

found no failure there, the Doctor closed his hold
on the bass, and after a few wild efforts the
fish floated on its side, and was carefully towed
toward and into the shallow water, whence its cap-
tor, running his fingers through the gill, deftly
plucked it and held it up, exclaiming:

"A four-pounder, by George!"

Gills and Mendy gathered around, and the
former whipped out his rule, and, laying out the
lines of the bass, announced the result:

" Nineteen inches long — six and a half broad
— two and a quarter thick; mouth-opening capa-
city, two and three-quarter inches, — a simon-pure
Micropterus dolomiei — small-mouthed — probable
weight, four and a half pounds."

115

/-'

BASS IN THE BEAVERKILL

//

BASS IN THE BEAVERKILL

IT will probably be a great surprise to most
of the anglers who yearly wade this famous
trout-stream to read of bass in their favorite
water. Before going any further I will say
that what harm can be done to the Fontinalis is
done, because bass will not ascend the stream higher
than a certain point, where the temperature is lower
than they like, to spawn. This given point is the
junction of the Willowemoc and the Beaverkill.
A little below the town of Roscoe, a stretch of six
miles down stream is one of the prettiest bits of
bass-fishing any angler can desire. Some years
ago this part of the river got the name of con-
taining numerous big brown trout that were very
wary and hard to land, and these very soon played
havoc with the speckled trout, so that few, if any,
are now caught.

In fishing in this water down to Cook's Falls,
where bass have been landed weighing from three

119

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

to five pounds, nobody seems to have imagined that
bass would run up the stream above the falls; yet
all the way down, in trying for trout at the best
season on various occasions, I did not meet a single
fisherman, and I landed no fish, though I used the
finest of imported leaders and, very small flies. It
never occurred to me that by using live bait or
young frogs in this rushing water things would
have been different.

Fishing at " The Fork "

For a number of weeks I confined my whole
attention to a fine pool made by the junction of
the two streams, locally known as " The Fork."
It is a long, deep pool, three hundred feet long
and seventy-five feet wide, and in parts fifteen
feet deep. I fished in this pool for trout every
evening, watching for them to rise about sundown,
and always succeeded in landing one, two, or three,
none less than twelve and some as much as eigh-
teen inches long.

During my stay of five weeks I had thirty-seven
large trout to my credit — not one Fontinalis —
the number being about evenly divided of brown,
rainbow, and German. One starry but dark even-
ing, I hooked a nice fish. I could not see it, but
by its leap and the way it acted I felt sure it was
a bass. My leader being very fine, it was neces-

120

BASS IN THE BEAVERKILL

sary to bide the fish's time. On the other bank a
local angler was walking slowly backward and
forward along the pebbly beach. Upon my ask-
ing him why so much exercise he repHed, " I Ve
got two on and mean to land them." After a
time I landed my fish, which proved to be a bass
of nearly three pound;s, and went to the hotel,
leaving my brother angler still on his beat. The
next day, I called at his place, and on my inquir-
ing about the previous night, he said, " Come and
see." To my great surprise, I saw a brown trout
of over three pounds, and a bass of three and a
half pounds, both taken on the fly. " So," said my
friend, " you see I landed a double, but not two
of a kind."

Ideal Bass Water

It was this incident which led to my inquiries
regarding bass in this part of the river. I was
told there were lots of them all the way down to
Cook's Falls, and I find that any day I can fill a
basket. I have caught them on the fly, with
young frogs, and with crayfish, but find lampreys
aff*ord the best and easiest fishing. The bed of the
river is rocky, and live bait get under the stones,
but lampreys slip out easily. I have never tried
minnows or a spoon, but bass will take anything
you like to off*er them. They rise to a fly almost

121

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

any time, and, living in quite rapid water, are
unusually gamy.

Below " The Fork," the river runs down an in-
cline of rocks in the bed of the stream. This is
ideal bass water. Without going any further
down stream a basket may be filled if the condi-
tions are at all favorable. If flies are not taken,
young lampreys may be dug out of the sandy
reaches of the river side. On the hill side above
this stretch of water is located a very comfortable
and clean boarding-house, well kept by John S.
Ferdon, whose address is Roscoe Post-Office. A
short distance away is the Campbell Inn, more
elaborate and higher priced, but well kept and
very comfortable for anglers. Either place will
suit those who want to fish in this neighborhood.

The river in parts is very rapid; but, as it turns
so often, many pools and stretches yield good re-
sults, the best and easiest fishing being along where
the railroad runs. It is quite possible, indeed very
likely, that the angler will strike and land one of
the large brown trout which were planted in this
section some years ago. They have grown large
and fat, but rise to the fly only in the evening
and have grown very wary, often getting away
with the fierce first rush before the angler is aware
of them, when it is too late to give them line, or
they rush around a rock or stump and so free
themselves. If the angler is fly-fishing he will

122

BASS IN THE BEAVERKILL

often strike a good-sized chub, which plays so
pluckily that for a while it will deceive the fisher-
man, who thinks he has a trout. I have had a
fifteen-inch chub rush up stream exactly hke the
speckled trout, but it gives up the fight much
sooner. I usually throw such catches on shore to
give the minks a fish supper. These nimble little
animals seem to be quite plentiful. I often see
them swimming across the stream or sitting by
the water's edge on the lookout for a young bass
or trout.

A Day's Work

Farther down, the stream does not widen, but
gets wilder, and everywhere the banks are lined
with a thick growth of timber or brush with high
mountains on each side, mostly uncultivated.
Farms are few and far between. The distance
from Roscoe to Cook's Falls by road or rail is
but six miles. By the winding stream I should
say it was about twelve miles, making a full day's
hard fishing. But such a day is well worth the
labor for the expert if he provides himself with
the right bait and tackle. He will not have any
desire to walk back home, or especially to carry
his catch on his back. He will be wise to time
himself for the return trip and catch the train
back in the evening. Arriving at Cook's Falls
the angler will have a chance to try his luck at

133

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

this famous bass pool. He will, no doubt, find
others there, the locality being well known and fre-
quented by many fishermen. But nobody could
pass by such a splendid place without having a
cast from the lower end of this rushing torrent.
For my own part I rarely go far away from
" The Fonk," and the angler will do well to try
the long deep pool at sundown early in the season.
If a fine evening the wind usually drops, and all
is calm on the surface except for the " plop-plop "
of the rising bass. With a cast of two or three
flies — a brown, a gray, and a red — dropped
lightly, if possible, over the place where the fish
are rising, the reel will probably spin to a lively
tune. A small handy net saves time in landing.
There will be plenty of work, or play, just as the
angler chooses to make it, until dark, — and after
dark for that matter. The fish will go on taking
the fly, as they can see just as well as in the day-
light. But to my mind there is httle pleasure in
fishing in the dark. It is difficult to bring the
fish to the net, and flies will get entangled, espe-
cially if pussy-willows form a background. So
I generally wind up when the stars begin to
twinkle, trudge off^ home, take off^ my boots, wash,
and eat a hearty supper, and then sit on the piazza
smoking and planning what to use and where to
go on the morrow, going to bed with a hope that
no rain will come in the night to flood the stream.

194

1

e

'b

^

c3

BASS IN THE BEAVERKILL

Of course, most anglers like to land fish, —
plenty of them and of tolerable size. Yet the
true fisherman can return home after a hard day's
work with nothing in his creel, and still be satis-
fied with his eff^orts, knowing full well that many
conditions have to be combined ere the wary fish
give the desired chances. And the fish are by no
means the only factor to be considered. A hot
or windy day is unfavorable, and a night's rain
swells these mountain rivers into roaring torrents,
so that if the holiday is limited to a week or two,
the waiting for the water to become normal would
try the patience of St. Peter himself.

Some Awkward Experiences

I have always found that it takes a couple of
days in a new place to find out what bait to use,
where the fish He, and, what time of day they are
amiable — for the only fish that is at all agreeable
is the one that meets you half way. If it be a
large one, the chance is all on its side to get away
and live to come some other day. The true angler
scorns to haul him in like a codfish. That is why,
in fly-fishing, a nice judgment is required, to be
neither quick nor slow. A bass will come to the
creel quicker when handled firmly. I shall never
forget one of the first really good-sized bass I
hooked, using a shiner for bait, at the SuUivan

125

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

County Club's Wolf Pond. I was alone in the
boat and had slipped an oar, and the bass had
reeled out nearly all my line. For the life of me
I had not strength to reel him back. He was
making toward New York for all he was worth.
A stranger, fishing some distance away, yelled,
" Why don't you get him in? " I replied, " I
wish I could." He came rowing up at full speed
and said, " Hand me your rod." I thankfully did
so. Well, he set to work and whirled the rod
around like a windmill. I said ruefully, " That
rod 's a good one, but I doubt if it 's as strong
as an oar. Remember it 's not yours, but mine,
you are jimcracking with." " Oh, damn the rod.
Let 's get the fish," he replied. After some more
whirlwind passes he certainly turned the traveller
toward my boat, and consequently to my net, and
began to reel in Uke mad, so that together we
soon had safe a fine three-pound bass. For the
rest of the day we fished together and I learned
a good deal that was useful to me in after life.

Another instance of my early bass-fishing days
was when my wife and I were out on the lily-
pond some miles back of Roscoe. A beautiful
sheet of water it was, but we had little success
and at last decided to try the lily-pads for pike.

We used a minnow and a large fly. Hardly
had we cast the first bait when my wife had a
shock and her reel began to whirr. The fish started

126

BASS IN THE BEAVERKILL

for the lily-pads. Just as I arose to assist her,
my rod gave a sudden jerk. There we both were,
in deep water, with long and tough lily-stems all
around. I said, " Hold tight, and I will land this
fellow." I began to reel in, net in hand. I got
him up to the boat and saw that it was a good-
sized pike. All at once he darted right under the
boat and took the rod with him, smashing it into
shivers. Laying the remaining butt down, I men-
tally resolved that this should happen but once,
and began the work of landing the other fish.
The rod my wife used was borrowed from a
friend, a fact not realized at the time, though that
friend, in another boat, was shouting for us to
come along home, which helped to make matters
worse. Any way the tip split at the ferrule. Still
struggling with three parts of a rod, after an
awful mess and tangle, we at last netted the prize
bass of the day's fishing-party and, merited, if we
did not win, a prize as rod-breakers.

127

THE CHOICE OF FLIES

TO choose the six best books would be no
more difficult than a like choice of flies.
It would be hardly possible to get two
fly-fishermen, from the many thousands
who cast, to agree on a choice of the six best flies.
The most that could be hoped for would be that
so short a hst should contain one of their fancy.
Indeed many anglers provide a varied list in
their books, because season and locaUty require it.
Bright or cloudy days often make it necessary to
change both size and color, and a fly used with
success in the morning is often no good at evening,
although on the following evening it may be just
the thing.

To minimize the difficulty and save time while in
the water, a well-known angler has devised a plan
to have ready-tied half-a-dozen leaders with a
choice and varied assortment in both color and size
— each set entirely diiferent from all the others.

131

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

The largest and most taking fly is placed as the
end, or tail, fly. Should the upper fly be taken first,
it is then removed to the end — the end fly being
much easier to handle, especially with a large fish.
Should the first cast of flies be unsuccessful, it is
short work to take it off^ the line and replace it with
another, duller in color, or brighter, as the case
may be. By this means, he claims, possibly with
truth, that less time is wasted and the quarry sooner
brought to the basket. It certainly has advantages
when fishing after dusk, with little light to see the
fly or tie it on the leader.

Many anglers assert that for bass-fishing one fly
is suflicient, and some think a small spoon used with
the fly gives better results. This would be espe-
cially so when a vari-colored fly like the Ferguson
is used. It would seem that with two flies, tied
forty inches apart and having as great a diff'erence
as possible in color and size, success would be more
sure. It is by no means rare that two fish will take
the flies at the same time. Often in playing one fish
the other fly, being moved rapidly in the water, will
be taken by another fish, out of pure jealousy. An
instance of this kind was shown when the writer,
fishing with a live minnow on the end of the leader,
and a fly tied, three feet from the bait, a good-
sized pickerel took the minnow. After being
brought to the edge of the boat, he broke away,
again to be returned, with a large bass on the fly —

132

THE CHOICE OF FLIES

the pickerel on the bait — both being landed after
considerable stiff and careful work.

Very few will contest the fact that the silver
doctor, both in form and beauty, is the queen of
flies. No matter what its size, for bass, trout, or
salmon, it holds its own as a taking fly, in any
season or locality. In " Favorite Flies," Mrs.
Marbury states that the majority of anglers place
the silver doctor at the head of the list, especially
for evening use. It did not originate in this coun-
try, but it has been heartily adopted, and adapted
to all waters by making it on all sizes of hooks.
Its value for all game-fish is undisputed.

As a bass fly, next to the silver doctor, the Fer-
guson is probably the most successful fly used. It
is named after Major Ferguson, Fish Commis-
sioner of Maryland, who endorsed this special pat-
tern as the true one among a number of others
slightly diff'erent, but all of the same name. It is
a bold and bright-colored fly, the wing with long
streaks of yellow, red, and black showing brightly
in the water, the green hackle softly blending with
the black and bright-golden body.

The matador was designed by William J. Cas-
sard, of New York, and later named by C. F. Orvis.
Its gay, rich dress, having wings of the black-
barred feathers of the wood-duck, with a bold white
streak running across the top, at once stamps it
as an excellent bass fly.

133

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

The W. D. Cleveland, so named after a member
of the " Texas Fishing Club," is somewhat similar
to Dr. Henshall's polka, having a gallina wing and
red-and-black body. The black blot at the top and
bottom of the wing is showy; otherwise this fly
has a sober brown appearance, but with distinct
and original markings.

The Cracker was designed by Dr. George Trow-
bridge, of New York, and was intended for the
fishes of Florida, being named after the " poor
whites " of that State and Georgia. Like the silver
doctor, it is a good all-round fly for diff*erent game-
fish. The luckiest models always contain a plenti-
ful supply of red in wings and back, with yellow
and blue mixed in, and with peacock feathers to
blend with its blue body. The Cracker is a remark-
ably handsome fly, having the red hackle of a
slightly darker shade than the red of the wing.
This fly is not so well known as its beauty warrants.

The Murray Hill, with bright body and wings,
lias a long red tail, black hackle and side feathers,
and resembles to an astonishing degree a living
moth. It has less color than the usual bass fly.
Bass have an eye for bright and strong colors, with
deep black well mixed in for contrast; in this they
much resemble the salmon and other game-fishes.
It is beyond question that bright colors will attract
from a greater distance. Could we be placed where
fish generally lie, these brilliant butterfly fairies

134

The Cracker

The Ferguson

The JVilliam D. Cleveland

The Murray Hill

The Silver Doctor

The Matador

\

THE CHOICE OF FLIES

dancing on the top of the water would attract our
attention, and had we the bass's pugnacious will,
we, too, might tackle with avidity the man encased
in so bright a robe.

To the thoughtless casual observer a fly is just
a bundle of feathers jumbled together anyhow —
without meaning. By no means is it so. The great
and standard flies have been evolved, designed,
sometimes after many years of thoughtful study
of both nature and habits of the fishes, and, the
inventor of such a fly as, for instance, the silver
doctor, unquestionably has conferred a world-wide
benefit for all time. Such a fly is born but once in
a very long time, — like a Shakespeare or a Dante.
But all anglers are of one mind in this: that a
limited variety of the famous patterns is all they
want, although the designs to pick from are as
various as the flowers that bloom. Practical fly-
fishers of many years' standing, like the late Wil-
liam C. Harris, Dr. Henshall, and others, have
repeatedly stated that in their experience they soon
discarded all but a few patterns. Dr. Henshall has
complete faith in his own creations, and with rea-
son, too; though his inventions are less brightly
colored than those of others, and, in the writer's
opinion, have too-thick bodies, — at least in some
instances. In only one of the five flies is red used,
and that only for the body and hackle. On the
other hand, Mr. Harris was a staunch believer in

135

\

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

red and green, but the difference in success may
be apparent only in the locality fished — whether
west or east. But all agree in the oft-repeated rule
that for dark days and evenings Ught flies are
always taken best.

One of the greatest advantages is having confi-
dence in a fly, — for it goes a long way toward
making it a success. A fisherman will almost in-
variably kill the greatest number of fish with the
fly he uses most. He persists so long that from
sheer anger a game-fish rises to his lure, and, be it
said, the artificial fly, when playing on the water,
is more like the natural fly than the average ob-
server would imagine; the many varieties winging
their flight on or near the water, with wings cocked
or flat, have been imitated with remarkable fidel-
ity. The duns, drakes, spinners, beetles, ants, and
browns — all insects in their natural state provid-
ing abundant food by night or day — being so diffi-
cult of capture, ingenious man provides substitutes
that will stay on the hook and keep their form and
color, in or on the water, till worn out, to be re-
placed by new ones.

It is not to be inferred that the writer advises
against trying any new patterns that are invented;
experience will at once tell whether a new fly will
be likely to surpass those now in use, and it is quite
possible that the greatest fly is yet to be made by
some genius, — a fly that will take at all times,

136

THE CHOICE OF FLIES

in all places, and all kinds of fish. Such a fly would
make the designer world-renowned among a host
of admiring brother anglers. One has a secret
thought that perhaps fishing would be then too
easy, and the delightful hope, the fisherman's guide,
would be gone forever.

But it is a noticeable fact that the great majority
of bass-fishermen use live bait, — frogs, minnows,
helgramites, crajrfish, and eels. They imagine that
a better-filled creel results from the use of live bait ;
yet fly-fishing is immeasurably superior in every
way. It is cleaner, less*cruel to bait and quarry,
cheaper and easier in many ways. Who has not
travelled some distance, to find his bait short just
as the fish are beginning to bite, or at times find
his bait dead and therefore useless? and how often
it happens that bait costs much more than the fish
are worth. Who cares to wade through a stream
with a can of minnows dangling in the water, with
nerves on edge every minute, as he expects their
escape or loss? Frogs are especially " cute " in
getting away either by forcing the lid off* the can,
or jumping in all directions when the angler has
only one hand at liberty ; and, worse still, how often
will they crawl around a large stone or rock, from
which no amount of pulling and tugging moves
them, till, weary of trying, a sudden, last, desper-
ate jerk parts the leader from the line.

These and many other ills come not to the fly-

137

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

caster. He calmly takes his book of flies, lying
snugly in his pocket, and soon replaces or adjusts
a new cast, right in mid-stream, and freely begins
anew his pleasant pastime. It is quite true that
bass are not always in the humor to take a fly, —
the same may be said of salmon and trout, — but
the ardent fly-caster usually has patience in his
make-up to wait till the fish will rise to his feathery
lure, and this often happens sooner than is ex-
pected, if some coaxing is brought into play.

No ingenious American has yet attempted — at
least to the writer's knowledge — to make flies by
machinery; so that all are tied by hand, and well-
made flies are necessarily costly. All the makers,
especially well-known and trustworthy houses, can
supply and will furnish the very best, if paid for
the extra care in tying. No comparison can pos-
sibly be made between the ten-cent bass fly of the
bargain stores and those made by such firms as
Abbey & Imbrie, Mills, and Charles F. Orvis, the
latter firm having made the sheet of colored flies
for this volume. The original patterns are copied
exactly, and each firm has its own choice set of pat-
terns, besides the standard kind.

Experienced anglers often say that bass will
jump at anything when they are in the humor;
but the trouble is that they are rarely in the humor
to jump at any old rag that is cast before them, and
the only way to put them in a humor to be always

138

THE CHOICE OF FLIES

jumping is to show them the most attractive flies.
A fly that will rise a fish often is a good fly.

Abbey & Imbrie, the New York fly-makers,
found a like difiiculty in making a selection of six
best flies ; but their final preference was for grizzly
king. Colonel Fuller, silver doctor, brown palmer.
Lord Baltimore, and Parmechenee Belle.

In the order given: No. 1 has a gray wing with
red ibis shoulder, warm gray hackle with a green
body, red tail to match the shoulder, and deep black
head. No. 2 is a brilliant yellow hackle, body and
wings, with shoulder of red, black head and tail.
No. 3 is decidedly diff*erent from the Orvis silver
doctor, having a bright blue hackle, black head,
with wings a mixture of grays, without the golden
pheasant's feathers, the absence of the latter taking
away much of its beauty in appearance, yet seem-
ing to lessen none of its eff'ectiveness as a taking
fly. No. 4 has the brown hackle, thick and bushy,
green head and body of peacock's harl, with a
short, stumpy, red tail. I like this fly, and, made
in any size, — smaller preferred, — it would do
great service for trout. No. 5 has a deep black
wing, hackle, head, and tail, with a bright golden
body and cream-colored spotted shoulder; it is a
most eff^ective-looking fly, but did not take as I
expected on trial. No. 6 is the regulation white
and red, with yellow head and woolly body.

A new pattern rising rapidly in favor, the Bab-

139

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

cock, used always as a second fly, — that nearer the
rod, — has bright yellow wings, in striking contrast
to the black head and hackle which is carried on by
a streak of black up the yellow wing. With its
body of bright scarlet with twisted gold thread and
its black tail, it is both a gracefully built and a strik-
ingly handsome fly. I used it with a silver doctor
as end fly, and, on this cast of flies, landed fish.

These flies, with the six Orvis flies pictured on
the plate, were specially tested by the writer, in
swift-running, cold water of the Beaverkill a few
miles above its junction with the Delaware, and
while, of course, this was not conclusive, it was found
that the silver doctor, by both makers, was far
ahead in the number of rises and of fish caught, in
the morning or the evening, on dull or bright days.
When I changed back to this successful lure, it
seemed to be as enticing to trout as to bass, — the
brown as well as the fontinalis, or brook, trout,
while the ever-voracious chub, that rises to any fly,
took a particular liking to this fly. One large fish
weighing over three pounds, after a gamy resist-
ance, was brought to the net, and, on extracting the
hook, he disgorged a good-sized mouse or young
rat that, no doubt, in swimming across the stream,
had just fallen a victim. The brown palmer, used
as a second or upper fly, hooked a number of fish.
Another cast, made up of the grizzly king and
Lord Baltimore, was not so effective, but attracted

140

THE CHOICE OF FLIES

attention, the fish rising, but returning without
taking the fly.

I am inclined to agree with Mr. Harris that bass
flies as sold by the dealers are far too large for
running water, and are better suited for the deep,
dark-colored water of lakes. The rule is not infal-
lible — that big flies catch the large fish; but after
dusk the large fly is more serviceable in that both
angler and fish see it more easily.

Later, I carefully trimmed part of the flies with
my scissors, reducing the wings and tail nearly one
third, the change being a decided improvement in
the Ferguson, Cracker, and silver doctor of the
Orvis flies, and the silver doctor, Parmechenee
Belle, and grizzly king of the Abbey & Imbrie
flies. While casting for bass in what is known as
a bass pool, I landed a splendid brown trout, on the
Cracker, before reducing its size; but at twilight,
and on three diff^erent occasions, I hooked a fine
bass on the trimmed Ferguson in this same pool.
Twice he got away while out of the water, and once
he rubbed the hook off* by nosing a rock in the
swirl of swift water. I tried him many times after,
and on every occasion he would leap out of the
water once, but never a second time.

In short, after most careful study of this par-
ticular kind of water and locality, I am firmly con-
vinced that any fish — bass, trout, or even salmon
— will, nine times out of ten, go for the fly that

141

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

has a shining metaUic body, either of silver or of
gold, the former preferred; and that this is the
explanation why the silver doctor is so universally
pronounced a favorite fly. My choice would be, out
of a dozen flies, ten with silver or gold bodies and
a varied assortment of wings and hackles, no matter
what fish be the quarry. In fresh or salt water the
same rule would apply, and size is more important
than color. It is only in the latter part of the sea-
son that large-sized natural flies are on the wing.
In swift-running water the bass is harder to land
and has in his favor all the chances of getting away.
With movements so quick, he is gone in a flash.
Many times, like lightning, he rises to meet the fly,
even before it touches the water, so that the angler
must be very alert to get ahead, if the bass is to
be hooked at all. To the fly-fisherman there is no
more inspiring sight than a fair-sized bass, leaping
out of the foaming, rapid water; in a second, head
up, with fly in his lips, shaking his whole body in
anger and fright; slipping down again, to tear
off^ up stream; the reel singing a lively tune. We
ask ourselves every time: " Will he get away? "

142

NOTES ON THE COOKING OF BASS

NOTES ON THE COOKING OF BASS

FOR good eating, both fresh-water bass and
salt-water bass should be perfectly fresh,
scaled or skinned, well washed, and
cooked to a nicety. All the different
kinds of bass dry up quickly; the scales harden
soon after being placed in the creel or in the boat,
especially in the warm sun, and when the bottom
of the boat is dry. A good method to keep the fish
moist is to have the creel lined with wet moss, and
in the boat a plain covered box with a few handf uls
of damp grass or ferns. By this means the angler,
on his return to camp or hotel, if he is to be his
own cook, will find the fish ready for scaling and
cutting.

A medium-sized bass of three pounds may be
fried, baked, or boiled. Its flesh is firm, white,
and juicy, and the taste of the fish is improved if
mushrooms or small onions are used in the cooking.

For frying, scale, cut oif the fins, take off the
head, and cut down the back clear to the back-bone.

10 145

THE basses: fresh-water and marine

Open up the fish and take away the inside; wash
and dry; then scatter pepper, salt, and flour, dip
in beaten eggs, and roll in cracker-crumbs or baked
stale bread pounded fine. Have the fat smoking
hot, and enough to cover the fish. Cook until
brown. Some chopped parsley cooked for a minute
along with a few slices of green onion-tops give it
a relish. Serve the fish with a garnish of watercress
and sliced lemon.

For baking, scale the fish and remove the gills.
Leave the head on, but remove the inside; wash,
and then dry. Make a stuffing as follows: Beat
two eggs, and add four chopped oysters, two sliced
and boned sardines, one cup of grated bread, some
chopped onion, minced parsley, a little pounded
mace, black pepper, allspice, and salt. Beat a piece
of butter in the stewpan. Stir the whole dressing
together over the fire till of the consistence of a
thick batter. Fill the fish with the stuffing and sew
it up. Put some slices of fat pork into small holes
made through the skin of the back. Bake in a mod-
erate oven, basting with plenty of butter, and serve
garnished with pickled mushrooms, parsley, and
anchovy s-auce.

To broil fresh-water bass, clean the fish in the
same manner as for frying. Rub it over with oil
or butter to keep the skin from sticking, and grease
the broiler with salt pork. Have the fire hot and
clear, a wood fire being the best. Keep constantly

146

NOTES ON THE COOKING OF BASS

turning till done. Place the fish on a hot dish,
season with salt and, pepper and a lump of butter,
spread over anchovy or tomato sauce with a garnish
of watercress and sliced lemon.

What bass-fisherman can forget the delightful
luncheon prepared by the guides on one of those
little islands of the St. Lawrence round about Clay-
ton, N. Y.? Should he be the fortunate possessor
of an island he could hardly fare better. After
sailing or rowing around with unfailing luck, the
anglers are landed and led to a shady grove where
every requisite for the mid-day open-air meal is to
be found. A neat little folding table appears,
whereon is spread a clean cloth with knives and
forks. The guide knows what he is about, and with
remarkable quickness he has ready a fire, frying-
pan, and fat. Everything is done in such a cleanly,
workmanlike fashion that one's appetite is whetted
to a turn. If bass were ever better cooked or tasted
more agreeably, we would be glad to hear of it. A
bass cooked rapidly within an hour after leaving the
water tastes solid, crisp, and sweet.

It may be a fancy that these guides cook so well;
it may only be that our appetites are keen from the
active sport, yet it is a feature of the game and we
are content. Even the coffee they make is far
better than that supplied by many city hotels.

Up in Maine, after a morning's fishing, the
guides will push their boat or canoe on shore at

147

THE basses: fresh-water and marine

some spot daily used by them, at which impromptu
tables, chairs of logs or old boxes, are to be found,
as well as a fireplace of stones ready for the wood
to be placed and lit. One guide shoulders a box
with all the necessary things, — round frying-pan
without a handle, bread, butter, pickles, and crock-
ery. The meal is soon ready. These guides invari-
ably fry the fish. Yet, if you want, they will as
quickly bake it or boil it, — in a primitive way.
They will take a good-sized bass, just out of the
water, without cleaning, wrap it up in wet paper,
and place it in the red-hot coals, testing it now and
then with a fork. When the fork goes through
easily the fish is cooked. Fifteen minutes is long
enough. They then carefully remove the fish from
the paper, leaving the skin adherent thereto, season
it with butter, salt, and pepper, and serve it. Some
Canadian guides provide parsley, flour, and eggs,
with which they make a tasty sauce.

Fresh-water bass is unsuited for boiling. It
seems to lose its rich flavor, and does not compare
with other ways of cooking. Salt-water bass, on
the other hand, — either striped, sea, or black bass,
— are by^ar the finest dish if boiled. No salt-water
fish can compare with boiled bass either for richness
of taste or whiteness and firmness of flesh. It has
no peer — at least in our waters. The small red
mullet caught around the coast of England has a
similar taste, but it is a rare and expensive fish,

148

5x0

\

NOTES ON THE COOKING OF BASS

while here bass are reasonable in price and com-
paratively plentiful the greater part of the year,
though striped bass soars up to forty or fifty cents
a pound in March and April. This noble fish, with
its striped coat, is beautiful to the eye, a bold and
defiant fighter, and, when fresh and well cooked,
a delicate and dainty dish for the table. Like the
salmon it is a clean feeder and grows to an im-
mense size at times; yet it always retains the deli-
cacy of flavor it had when a youngster of but twelve
inches long.

The fish should be ready for the kettle within
an hour of his demise. To cook a ten-pound fish
proceed as follows:

Scale and clean it; then cut off the fins, leaving
the tail and the head intact. Cut it into three parts,
to allow of its being placed in the kettle. Take a
piece of cord and wrap around the head under and
above the middle piece and round the tail piece, so
that the fish will be together when cooked. Lay it
back in its natural position, with garnishings over
the cuts. Use sufficient water to cover the fish, a
tablespoonful of vinegar, a teaspoonful of salt to
every two quarts of water, some bay leaves, and
soup-vegetables for flavor. Lower the fish gradu-
ally into warm water. Boil it quickly, then draw
it aside to simmer till done. Lift up the strainer
carefully from the kettle and drain it well. Place
it on a dish with a napkin well trimmed with pars-

149

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

ley. Arrange slices of lemon, slices of hard-boiled
eggs, some chopped pickles, and a few capers, with
boiled potato-balls around the dish, and serve with
a rich Hollandaise sauce. Black or sea bass can be
cooked in the same way.

In roasting and frying, much the same method
can be used as that mentioned for fresh- water bass,
except that in baking or roasting a httle more fat
is required. In my judgment the flesh of the sea-
basses has no equal in salt-water fishes, no matter
which way they are cooked, providing they are well
cooked, for underdone fish is uneatable. If over-
done it loses its flavor or is too dry. Some prefer
fish served with all its skin removed. This can be
done either before or after cooking. If before,
skin from the head, loosen and strip it down with
the aid of a sharp knife.

In carving a fish, when cooked, always cut to
the bone in slices, then remove the bone and cut
as before. Even a small fish should not be cut
right through. Remove first the whole of the side
that is uppermost as it lies in the dish.

The fresh- water basses can be filleted with great
advantage and little loss of flesh. First scale thor-
oughly, and remove the fins ; then cut carefully from
the back, closely shaving the back-bone to the belly,
repeating the same work on the other side, and the
skeleton remains with little flesh, if care be taken in
the work. These fillets can be cut in two and fried

150

NOTES ON THE COOKING OF BASS

in crumbs, or rolled up and placed in the tin for
roasting. If the latter, a good-sized lump of butter
should be placed in the roll, with salt and pepper,
some chopped parsley, and a little white wine, with
a scattering of flour to help brown the fish. In a
sharp oven, it should be cooked in thirty minutes,
served with or without sauce, with small new pota-
toes and boiled peas.

Should our gentle angler land an extra-large
black bass, and not desire to have him mounted as
a trophy of his skill, but prefer to eat him, why
should he not cook him in grand style, — show his
friends what a beauty the bass is dressed out with
a garniture of crayfish, of which in life he had his
share? Between the red crayfish place sprigs of
parsley and halves of boiled eggs. Remove the
skin, to show the bass's white and flaky flesh, which
cannot fail to induce the guest or angling friend
to show impatience at delay in falling to the
feast.

Foreign cooks adopt more pretentious methods
in cooking fish, — not only in cooking, but in the
addition of sauces and elaborate garniture. These
notes, being less pretentious, are confined to simple
cooking in home or camp. Finally the conclusion
of the whole matter is that, unless the fish are abso-
lutely fresh, they are utterly worthless, and that
marine basses require less salt than fresh-water
basses.

151

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

In fact, a good plan to get better results would
be to soak fresh- water fish in strong salted water
for thirty minutes, especially if the fish are caught
in lakes or pools. By this means the flavor is im-
proved, and the unpleasant muddy taste done away
with.

The case is different with striped bass or sea
bass; less salt is necessary, and if properly boiled,
baked, broiled, or fried, there is not a fish that is
more delicious than these, especially the striped
bass.

152

ARTIFICIAL LURES

FOR BLACK BASS

ARTIFICIAL LURES FOR BLACK BASS
By JAMES A. CRUIKSHANK

THE black basses have a special interest
for the sport-loving angler by reason of
the variety of methods by which they
may be taken. In many waters they will
rise readily to the artificial fly. A small spinner
or spoon, preceding a fly of fairly good size, fur-
nishes a lure light enough to use with a heavy fly-
rod, and will generally produce abundant sport
when the fish are taking a surface bait. Natural
bait, such as minnows, frogs, helgramites, grass-
hoppers, crickets, worms, and even small mice, will
each be found taking at times. And artificial lures,
— some in imitation of minnows, frogs, helgra-
mites, bugs, and mice, others of startling origi-
nality as to form, color, and motion either in air or
water, and resembling nothing ever seen by the eye
of man in the air, on the earth, or in the waters
under the earth, — are now off^ered in bewildering
profusion. Despite the first impression of the in-

155

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

credulous angler, many of these strange devices will
bring rises and strikes a-plenty.

Bass may be taken in swift-running rivers by
methods analogous to those of fly-fishing for trout.
In ponds and lakes they may be taken by casting
and trolling, either with natural bait or artificial
lures, or by still-fishing with natural bait. Prob-
ably no other game-fish taken by the American
angler responds to such a variety of lures presented
in such a variety of methods.

The recent popularity of the new sport of bait-
casting has served greatly to increase interest in
angling for black bass, and has largely stimulated
the production of artificial lures.

In the new form of bait-casting, from the reel,
with the short rod, the shape and weight of the
artificial lure and its easy flight through the air are
of much importance; on them depend the distance
and accuracy of the cast. With a lure weighing
an ounce or more, casts averaging much over a
hundred feet are made by good casters. More
good water may be covered by this method in a
short time than by any other, and it exactly meets
the restless American's love for activity and change
of scene even in his pastimes. "^

Natural, or live, bait has distinct disadvantages.
It is difficult, sometimes impossible, to obtain ; does
not live long in confinement; is frequently unsuited
to the waters to which it may be transported ; is not

156

ARTIFICIAL LURES FOR BLACK BASS

pleasant to handle, either aHve or dead; and can be
counted upon for only a very few casts, when its
usefulness ends.

The ingenious American, alert for improve-
ments, humanely inclined, and impatient of the
time wasted in obtaining live bait, has set himself
assiduously to the production of artificial lures
which would take game-fishes. He has found them.

" Will take more fish than live bait," the phrase
employed by not a few of the manufacturers of
these lures, may have furnished the unthinking
with cause for merriment; but the critical expert,
who carefully tests each new device, will find that
in many cases the claim is fully justified by results.
The writer is among the enthusiastic converts to
the modern artificial black-bass lure. He has per-
sonally tested every new lure which has come into
prominence during the last five years, on waters
ranging from the famous Belgrade Lakes, of
Maine, to ponds within sight of New York's sky-
scrapers, and has compared results, side by side,
with anglers using the best of native live baits.
The modern artificial lures, properly rigged and
handled, need fear competition with no live bait so
far discovered.

Yet the curious fact remains that, although we
have many champions of the exclusive use of the
fly for trout, salmon, and ouananiche, we have very
few champions of the exclusive use of the artificial

157

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

lure for black bass. It must be because our anglers
are unfamiliar with the recorded facts.

The lures illustrated are a careful selection of
the best now on the market. It will be observed
that in each case the treble hooks, furnished by the
manufacturers as part of the equipment, have been
removed and single hooks substituted. The strong
tendency of the day in this direction is shown by
the option in hooks now being offered by the
makers of many of the lures, and by the legislative
enactments of several States, prohibiting the use
of the treble hook.

The Worden buck-tail minnow (No. 1) is fash-
ioned from the stiff hair of a deer's tail. The affin-
ity between black bass and deer-tail hair has not
satisfactorily been explained; nevertheless, this
lure has a firmly established reputation as one of
the most effective inventions ever offered to the
angler. It may be used above or below the sur-
face and will gain much by the addition of a spoon.
The Bacon spoon shown with it is unquestionably
the finest spoon yet produced: it folds back against
the wire shank while travelling through the air,
and spins very freely even when drawn slowly
through the water. Nickel or silver finish, on
both sides of the spoon, is to be recommended.
The habit of painting the concave side of spoons
a brilliant red, has, in my opinion, nothing in its
favor.

158

Bass Lures now in Use

ARTIFICIAL LURES FOR BLACK BASS

The " Dowagiac " lures, of which there are sev-
eral, are comparatively new comers which have
already won their place as leaders. The Dowagiac
rainbow minnow (No. 2) , having green back, shad-
ing through yellow or orange sides to white on
the belly, is the most killing minnow yet offered
to the gamy black bass. It is equally killing when
used for large brook-trout, togue, salmon, mas-
calonge, and pickerel. Having spinners turning
in opposite directions, the lure does not turn, there-
fore no kinking occurs, and it is correctly weighted.

The Dowagiac bronze minnow (No. 3), round,
and having only one spinner, is frequently as use-
ful as the rainbow minnow. It will be observed
that in this lure the tail hook is very close to the
body of the minnow. This arrangement is impor-
tant where the fish are striking short, and may be
employed with any of the Dowagiac lures. The
careful workmanship and finish of these lures will
delight any critical angler.

The silver soldier (No. 4) is made of coin silver,
shaped and finished in careful imitation of a small
minnow, and slightly curved so that the motion
through the water is darting and not rotary. A
single hook is firmly soldered onto the side of the
minnow. This lure has been found very killing,
not only for black bass, but also for trout, salmon,
and several varieties of salt-water game-fishes,
especially the striped bass and bluefish. When used

159

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

in salt-water, however, the larger size, with a hook
of heavier calibre, should be employed.

Shakespeare's Revolution (No. 5), as the result
of large advertising and genuine merit, is famous
far and wide. Of large size, aluminum body, with
propellers on blades revolving in opposite direc-
tions, it creates " a wake like a steamboat's " on
moderately still water. Although wonderfully ef-
fective on Western and Southern waters, it has
never achieved remarkable success in the waters of
thickly settled communities; but it is well worth a
place in the outfit, and will generally arouse the
pugnacious instincts of big bass.

Mill's Yellow Kid (No. 6), on the other hand,
is distinctively an Eastern lure and has not yet
many friends in the West.. It is of tin construction,
painted bright yellow with gold spots, and, like the
preceding lure, makes a tremendous wake when
drawn over the water. In case the fish are biting
" high," single hooks may be added at the sides of
the body, but I have not usually found them neces-
sary. Few lures will produce as many rises as this
one.

The coaxer (No. 7) , having body of cork, enam-
elled white, wings of red flannel, waterproofed, and
tail of large red feathers, is built upon the ingeni-
ous principle of imitating a bug while in flight as
well as when on the water. Experienced anglers
for black bass are familiar with the fact that the

160

ARTIFICIAL LURES FOR BLACK BASS

bass frequently starts for a lure before it reaches
the water; perhaps every casting-lure ought to
be constructed with reference to this fact. The
coaxer has taken many good fish during its short
life, and may be recommended in confidence. In
Eastern waters, the smaller size should be used,
while the larger size is successful in better adapted
Western and Southern waters.

The Mohawk darter (No. 8) is a flat metal min-
now, nickel-plated, and is drawn through the water
by a wire hinged somewhat back from the extreme
front end. By this arrangement an oscillating or
darting motion is given, while a slight twist in the
tail tends to keep the lure slowly turning over. In
principle this device has much to commend it, and
its killing quality is not limited to black bass ; salt-
water fish strike at it readily. It should prove a
very effective lure for striped bass.

The best of the several varieties of artificial frogs
now offered the angler is the hollow rubber frog
(No. 9), and there are times when these imitations
will prove excellent lures. I have found that frog
with the brown back and cream-colored belly the
most successful, although my habit is to paint my
artificial frogs in careful imitation of the animals
native to the waters I am fishing. And it is also
good sense to paint both sides of these lures in
imitation of the belly of the frog only, since frogs,
either natural or artificial, when cast by an angler,

11 161

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

have a persistent way of landing on their backs.
When I make a frog, therefore, he has no back.

The phantom minnow (No. 10), hollow, made
of silk, and painted in Various colors, is very fre-
quently a successful lure for black bass. The blue-
back, silver-belly coloration has proven most useful
in my hands. The gang-hooks should be removed,
and a single hook substituted. This single hook
I attach by cutting a very small slit in the belly of
the minnow, passing in the head of a good-sized
needle-eyed O'Shaughnessy hook, and fastening
the hook by means of fine piano-wire to the cross-
bar in the mouth of the minnow. A second hook,
similarly attached, may be located in the tail of the
minnow, if desired; but as a rule the hooks which
are placed in the centre of the lure are those which
take the fish. All game-fish have the habit of
attacking their prey from the side, after which the
victim is turned and swallowed head first.

The pilot (No. 11), and the similar devices
known as the turn-a-frog and pilot spinner, are
extremely ingenious little articles by which a lure
or bait may be made to swim deep or on the surface.
They are made of aluminum, are small, light in
weight, do not interfere with distance or accuracy
in casting, and will positively prevent a spinner or
spoon from twisting or kinking the line.

There is very great difference between the
management of live bait and artificial lures in

ARTIFICIAL LURES FOR BLACK BASS

angling for black bass. With live bait the fish is
often permitted to take his time and ample quan-
tity of line, — I have even known one expert angler
to feed out a hundred feet of line before he struck
his fish. When using artificial lures one must strike
on the instant that any sensation of attack on the
lure is felt; indeed, when the bass can be seen
making for the lure, the strike may even be timed
in advance.

Again, the invariable rule is to keep an artificial
lure moving. Even in case of a savage rise where
the fish misses the lure, it should not be stopped, but
reeled slowly in and cast again.

Probably in no country of the world is the angler
provided with so many ingenious and practical
devices intended to increase his pleasure. Let not
undue conservatism rob him of the additional plea-
sure so near at hand.

163

THE STRIPED BASS

Family

THE family to which this fish belongs con-
tains a great many members differing
widely in size and other characteristics,
and inhabiting the fresh waters as well
as the ocean. Those which are best known to the
angler and most nearly related to the striped bass
are the white bass, yellow bass, and white perch,
all of which except the last are fresh-water resi-
dents. The white perch lives equally well in fresh,
brackish, or salt water.

The marine relatives of the striped bass are the
common Northern sea-bass, sometimes called black-
fish; the Southern forms of sea-bass; and some
smaller tribes of little importance to the angler.
These are by no means the only elements of the
great family of Basses or Serranidce, A bewilder-
ing variety of groupers flourishing in the near-by
and remote seas constitute the bulk of the series;
but these do not come within the scope of this work,

167

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

as for the most part they represent offshore fish-
eries or countries remote from our own. Suffice
it to mention in this connection one celebrated
species, well known on the Pacific coast as a sea-
bass, although quite different from all the sea-
basses, so called, in the East. This refers to the
giant jewfish of California and the Gulf of Mex-
ico, which is styled guasa by natives of Spanish
origin. The guasa sometimes attains a weight of
four hundred pounds. It takes the hook freely,
but has no superiority over the common codfish for
sport.

The Genus Roccus

The striped bass belongs to the genus Roccus, a
name invented by Dr. Mitchill, nearly a century
ago, with reference to one of the common names
of this bass, the word being dog-Latin for " rock."

Description

The genus Roccus has two patches of small teeth
on the base of the tongue; the lower jaw is much
longer than the upper ; the scales on the cheeks are
nearly smooth along their margin; and the back
fins are separated by a narrow space. Another
characteristic of some importance is the structure
of the spines behind the vent, which increase regu-
larly in size from the first to the third. The striped-
bass genus is further distinguished by a rather

168

THE STRIPED BASS

elongate and stout body, while the peduncle of the
tail is slender.

The greatest depth of the body of this bass
equals the length of the head, and it is two sevenths
of the entire length of the fish without the tail-fin.
The eye is small, one half as long as the snout, and
contained from six to eight times in the length of
the head; it is placed high, near the top of the
head. The jaw-bone reaches to below the middle
of the eye. The anal spines are slender, the third
and longest about one fifth as long as the head.
The fourth and fifth spines of the first back-fin are
the longest, about two fifths as long as the head.
The breast-fin (pectoral) is a little longer than the
belly-fin (ventral) and one half as long as the head.

There are nine spines in the first fin on the back,
one spine and eleven or twelve rays in the second
dorsal fin. The anal fin has three spines and ten
or eleven rays. There are seven rows of scales be-
tween the lateral line and the first dorsal fin, nine-
teen rows between the lateral line and the ventral
fin, and sixty-five scales in the lateral line itself.
This is an average number of scales, which will
be bound to vary among individuals.

The sides are greenish or olivaceous above, sil-
very below, sometimes with a brassy lustre. They
are marked by seven or eight longitudinal streaks,
none of which are half as wide as the eye, one of
them passing along the lateral line. The lower-

169

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

most stripe is somewhat below the middle of the
body depth. In life these stripes are purplish blue,
fading to slate and light brown. The whole body-
is also beautifully iridescent and presents one of
the most pleasing pictures in the whole range of
game-fishes. In addition to the beautiful play
of colors this bass is trim and shapely, swift in
movement, and possessed of great strength and
curming, qualities which combine to make it one
of the greatest favorites in the angler's category.
It seems wonderful that a fish which sometimes
surpasses 100 pounds in weight should develop
from an egg smaller than that of the shad, and
from an embryo which when newly hatched is less
than a quarter of an inch long. The egg of the
striped bass is scarcely half as bulky as that of
the Atlantic salmon, yet its product is much larger
than that of the largest salmon on record.

Common Names

In the northern United States the name " striped
bass " is more generally used than any other for
this fish, especially along the coast. In the Dela-
ware, Susquehanna, and Potomac rivers it is called
" rockfish," which was one of the early New York
names for this species. Schoepf, a German writer
who came to the United States during our Revo-
lutionary war, heard the names " rockfish " and

170

TH E STRIPED BASS

" striped bass" at New York. In 1814 Dr. Mit-
ehill caUed it " Mitchill's perch," " striped basse,"
and " rockfish." Dr. James Mease, about the same
time, gave a very interesting account of the fish
under the name of " streaked bass." In the
same article he stated that rockfish weighing from
twenty-five to sixty pounds are called " green-
heads." " Greenhead " and " squid-hound " are
names appUed to large individuals found in ocean
waters of New England.

Distribution

Natural. — The natural range of the striped bass
includes the entire Atlantic coast from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the fish en-
tering rivers and ascending them almost to their
head waters unless stopped by natural or artificial
obstructions. Individuals are known to have been
taken every year in the Alabama River, including
some of large size. The fish has also been captured
in the lower Mississippi. In the vicinity of Pensa-
cola, Fla., examples were occasionally obtained
some years ago. Dr. G. Brown Goode stated that
it was rather rare in the St. Johns River, Fla., at
the time of his investigations. In the great bays
and sounds from North Carolina to Cape Cod it is
sometimes very abundant now. Many large in-
dividuals have been taken in Albemarle Sound.

171

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

At Edenton, N. C, Dr. Capehart has caught fif-
teen tons at one haul, many of the fish weighing
from seventy-five to eighty pounds each. At an-
other haul 820 fish weighing 37,000 pounds were
captured. A still larger seine-haul contained nine-
teen tons of striped bass, among which were 600
individuals averaging sixty pounds each, and sev-
eral weighing 105 pounds.

There is a record also of a seine-haul containing
1,500 striped bass, near Norfolk, Va. These facts
are given to show the great centres of abundance
on the Atlantic coast. It is not certain whether the
capture of such large numbers of bass at particular
points reduces the angler's chances in waters far-
ther north, because this bass appears to be more
truly local in its habitation and less given to wan-
dering along the coast than one might at first blush
suppose. The same observation has been made on
the Pacific coast, where the striped bass was arti-
ficially introduced more than twenty years ago.
The spread of the fish along the coast north and
south is very limited, and the Fish Commissioners
of California have undertaken to make up for this
peculiarity by transplanting in many waters, to
form new centres of distribution.

It is a noteworthy fact that although striped
bass live chiefly in salt or brackish water, they may
be suddenly placed in fresh water without incon-
venience or loss. They have been reared success-

172

THE STRIPED BASS

fully in fresh-water ponds, where their increase of
weight has been rapid, but no one has yet discovered
their spawning in such waters.

Artificial, — The natural distribution of the
striped bass has been supplemented in the United
States by the transplanting of the fish to California
waters, and this experiment has constituted one of
the great triumphs of modern fish-culture, as the
yearly catch of striped bass in California, both com-
mercially and for sport, is nearly equal to the yield
in Atlantic waters. There is, however, a marked
difference in the marketing of the fish, because when
New York is paying twenty to thirty cents a pound
San Francisco can have the same fish for a few
cents, the wholesale price at certain seasons ranging
from three quarters of a cent to a cent and a half
a pound.

In the Potomac River the fish ascends to the
Great Falls. It has been one of the commonest and
most highly esteemed fish of the Delaware and
Susquehanna rivers, though unfortunately it has
not been so abundant there in recent years. It has
been regarded as a permanent resident of Graves-
end Bay, N. Y., with the fishery at its height from
the 10th of October to the 10th of November. Bass
up to forty-five pounds in weight were formerly
caught in May, but in the fall the fish range from
nine to twenty-four inches in length. In Great
South Bay specimens have been obtained by the

173

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

writer at Blue Point Cove, Great River, Nichols's
Point, and off Widow's Creek. A great haul was
made about the middle of October, 1901, on the
Lone Hill middle-ground. In some tributaries of
Great South Bay the fish remains throughout the
year.

Dr. Mearns reported the capture of great num-
bers of bass in nets set through the ice of the
Hudson in winter, and in the drift nets of the
shad-fishermen in spring. Large individuals weigh-
ing sixty pounds or more are sometimes taken in
winter and early spring. Dr. Mearns took a speci-
men in fresh water a httle above the estuary of
Poplopen's Creek.

At Wood's Hole, Mass., the fish arrives about
May 1 and leaves about November 1. It is not a
common specimen and apparently does not spawn
there; it ranges in weight from half a pound to
sixty-five pounds.

The striped bass ascends the St. Lawrence at
least as far as Quebec, and may possibly reach the
Niagara, where a specimen has been reported at
Lewiston. It is not certain, however, that this in-
dividual was a striped bass; it may have been the
white bass, which resembles its marine relative,
although much smaller and confined strictly to
fresh water.

The striped bass was introduced into California
through the joint efforts of the United States Fish

174

THE STRIPED BASS

Commissioners and the California State Fish Com-
missioners in 1879 and 1882. It has become so
abundant that the annual catch by fishermen is
nearly as large as the yearly supply on the Atlantic
coasti The range of the fish is still Hmited to the
interior bays and rivers. In 1882, 400 fingerlings
were planted at Army Point, in Solano County.
The extent of the increase may be appreciated from
the market sales in 1903, which amounted to nearly
2,000,000 pounds. The bass have not gone far
north or south of the Golden Gate. Russian River,
in Sonoma County, seems to be almost the northern
limit, while Monterey Bay is the southern boundary.
The Commissioners are of opinion that the bass
dislike to migrate far through the salt water in
order to reach other fresh-water streams. To ob-
viate this supposed difficulty a plant was made in
Orange County, in December, 1903, in a series of
brackish lagoons fed by fresh water. Seventy-five
bass ranging from six ounces to three and a half
pounds in weight, and assorted according to size,
were kept in live-cars for thirty-six hours and
were then shipped 700 miles in twenty-gallon cans,
reaching their destination without loss. The object
of this southern plant is to establish the bass in the
Santa Ana River and San Diego Bay. Arrange-
ments were also made to send bass to Del Norte
County, where the waters are considered suitable
for the experiment.

175

THE basses: fres h-~w ater and marine

Abundance

Notwithstanding the numerous agencies which
have combined to deplete the waters of game and
food fish, the striped bass is still a very important
source of profit to the fisherman and of sport for .
the angler. A fish which furnishes a quota of about
1,500,000 pounds to the Eastern markets annually,
besides the large numbers caught by anglers, and in
addition to a commercial and angling yield of
nearly equal volume on the Pacific coast, cannot be
considered a declining object of fishery. It seems
to be established that there are not so many bass in
ISTorthern waters as were reported by the early
writers, — Captain John Smith, the Virginia his-
torians, Mitchill, Mease, De Kay, and others. The
fish have either migrated beyond the limits of pol-
lutions, obstructions, and disturbance of their feed-
ing and spawning grounds, or they have ceased to
visit our shores with the other migratory shoals that
still make their appearance annually.

The sale in Northern markets of tens of thou-
sands of young bass, many of them scarcely more
than six inches long, must have been followed by
local depletion at least. The same unwise demand
for immature fish developed in California as soon
as the bass began to attract attention in its bays and
estuaries, but legal measures were promptly taken

176

THE STRIPED BASS

to protect the young, and their good effects were
soon apparent.

Fish-culture has come to the rescue of the people
also, and the artificial hatching of the eggs has sup-
plemented the transplanting of bass with gratify-
ing results. Transplanting alone by means of very
small numbers has already placed California on a
par with the Atlantic coast in the extent of its bass-
fishing. Artificial hatching has proceeded in a
small and desultory fashion for more than thirty
years ; but no extensive work in this line was accom-
plished until 1904, when Mr. S. G. Worth, of
the United States Fisheries Bureau, collected
13,683,000 eggs at Weldon, N. C, from May 2 to
May 24, the great bulk of them coming in one day.
May 6. Sixty-nine per cent of the eggs were
hatched.

Mr. Worth believes that partial rearing in ponds
would be successful. Of this there seems to be no
doubt, as such experiments have been made at
several places along the Atlantic coast, notably in
South Carolina and Rhode Island. Striped bass
have been captive in the New York Aquarium since
1894, and some individuals have increased from
about eight ounces to twenty pounds in weight in
a pool only twenty-eight feet long and about three
feet deep.

The rearing of choice game-fish in public as well
as private waters is worthy of encouragement, as

12 177

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

the project is entirely feasible and the object to be
accomplished is in every way desirable.

Favorite Haunts

The striped bass prefers cold waters. It is fre-
quently found at the mouths of small creeks and in
tid,e-ways, where it lies in wait for the great schools
of little fishes upon which it feeds. The rock-bound
shores of our Northern bays furnish hiding-places
for fish of the largest size. Sometimes a school of
big ones will be seen in the surf along sandy shores,
feeding upon such small fish as may be present.

The great bays and sounds of the coasts of
North Carolina and Virginia are centres of abun-
dance, and provide suitable spawning-grounds for
enormous numbers of the fish. Edenton and Wel-
don, N. C, and Norfolk, Va., are noted fishing-
places. The Roanoke River, in the vicinity of
Hamilton, yields a great many bass.

The Little Falls of the Potomac is a favorite
ground for fly-fishing in good seasons. The Pas-
saic and the Raritan have also furnished good sport
for this style of capture. The Susquehanna River,
near Havre de Grace and in the vicinity of Port
Deposit, is noted for its bass. Pushing farther
north we find favorite grounds near New York
and in Great South Bay, also near Newport, R. I.,
Block Island, West Island, No Man's Land, and

178

THE STRIPED BASS

at the fishing-stands of Martha's Vineyard and its
neighboring islands.

In November the bass congregate in shoals in
ponds of brackish water, the back waters of tidal
rivers, or in the bays and bayous of rivers flowing
into the sea.

On the Pacific coast the most famous haunts of
the fish are Lake Merritt, in Oakland, Cal., San
Francisco Bay, San Leandro Bay, and San An-
tonio Slough. The last is celebrated for its great
numbers of big fish.

It has been said that the bass hibernates in winter,
but this remains to be established. Genio C. Scott
records the freezing of a great shoal of the fish in
ponds formed by the backwater of the Seconnet
River, where they were discovered by their dorsal
fins closely packed together in the ice. Many years
ago the great winter resorts of the fish were Mote-
tecunk, thirty miles from Long Branch, and the
rivers of Elk and Egg Harbor.

Habits

Migrations. — The striped bass lives in the seas
or the fresh waters indifferently, and has been kept
successfully in artificial and natural ponds. It is
a lover of cold water, and will ascend streams for
long distances unless stopped by obstructions. It
is especially fond of rivers frequented by the shad,

179

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

because the eggs of that fish furnish one of its
favorite foods ; and the river herring, which accom-
panies the shad, also contributes greatly to the
diet of the bass. Perhaps the habit of ascending
streams was acquired through this marked love for
shad eggs and the tender flesh of the alewife.

Feeding. — The bass is carnivorous and preda-
ceous and consumes vast numbers of little fishes in
the streams, particularly herring and shad. The
shallow bays along the coast furnish it with killi-
fish, anchovies, silversides, lant, and many other
small fishes, as well as worms, shrimp, crabs, squid,
clams, scallops, mussels, and other marine inverte-
brates. Its movements while feeding are greatly
influenced by the tides.

Spawning. — The greatest runs of the fish take
place in the spring, when pressing toward the
spawning-grounds, or very late in the fall, at
which time great numbers are often obtained,. The
largest fish frequent the vicinity of rocks and " nig-
ger-heads " along the shores of our bays and the
coast indentations between the shores and the out-
lying reefs. The estuaries and tideways harbor
smaller bass, while in the shallowest waters are
found the smallest of the race.

The uncertainty of the movements of this fish
is proverbial. It is hard to find at certain times,
and still more difficult to bring to the hook. It is
shy and extremely wise on occasion, so that no

180

THE STRIPED BASS

angler can lay claim to continual success in that
branch of fishing. When the bass does strike the
hook, however, there is no possibility of mistake
about its intention, and. it almost invariably hooks
itself without assistance.

The bass spawns either in the rivers or in the
brackish waters of bays and sounds, but little has
been discovered about its breeding-places except in
North Carolina. At Havre de Grace it was almost
invariably difficult to get ripe eggs and milt at the
same time, and still farther north the practical diffi-
culties increased; in fact, almost nothing has been
accomplished in the Northern States because of the
slight knowledge heretofore possessed concerning
the breeding-places and breeding-habits.

Qualities

As a Food-Fish. — As a food-fish this bass has
been noted since the very early history of our
country, and the Indians were acquainted vdth its
excellence before white men came to these shores.
The flesh is most palatable and nutritious, so that
the bass ranks in the markets among the choicest
of the fishes. In California it is considered as sec-
ond in value and importance to the salmon only.
In the Eastern cities it commands a higher price
than almost any other of the species.

Many persons, unfortunately for the perma-

181

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

nency of the supply, consider the very small fish a
great delicacy and continually tempt the market-
men and fishermen to obtain what they desire, not-
withstanding the most stringent protective laws.

The flesh of the striped bass is firm, white, and
flaky, and has a delightful flavor produced by the
generous and nourishing diet upon which it subsists.

This is one of the largest of the food and game
fishes which ascend into fresh waters, frequently
reaching a greater size than the largest of the
salmon family. Individuals weighing more than
100 pounds are by no means uncommon.

As a Game-Fish, — A shapely fish, moreover;
active and graceful in its movements; beautiful
far above the average of the game-fishes in its sil-
very mail and brilliant iridescence; quick to seize
a suitable lure and to hold it firmly; full of re-
sources in its struggle against capture; full of
expedients for escaping the hook or parting the
most approved line; endowed with wonderful
strength and endurance; quick to take advantage
of all the natural obstructions to the angler's skill
which exist in its favored haunts, — the striped bass
is a king among the game-fishes. It is certainly
in the same class with the salmon for its intelligence
and fighting qualities. Its first plunge when hooked
is more powerful than that of the salmon, and its
endurance is greater. It depends upon its great
strength for its escape from capture, and resorts

182

THE STRIPED BASS

to no tricks such as every salmon-fisherman must
overcome in the pursuit of his favorite quarry. The
bass fights in the water, at the bottom or mid-
depth, utiHzing every accessory which nature has
furnished for its protection. Sharp rocks, stems of
kelp, sunken timbers, or whatever may offer a
chance to chafe or cut the line or break the hook
are employed to the best advantage. A quick
change of direction, involving sudden slacking of
the line, is one of the wiles which often lead to
failure with the most expert anglers.

Casting through the surf is one of the most exhil-
arating, though precarious, methods of bass-fishing.
When a great fish is hooked, everything combines
to circumvent the fisherman: the bass itself, the
weight of the surf, the action of the undertow,
the friction of rocks, the uncertain footing of the
fisherman, and, frequently, the force of the winds,
— sorely try his patience and test his skill to the
utmost. The muscles of the bass are formed with
regard to strength as well as to symmetry, and
when supplemented by unflinching courage they
involve a contest which soon develops into a furious
battle. No angler, however skilful, can be sure of
his prize until it is fairly landed beyond the power
of escape.

The great vitality of the bass will be more fully
appreciated when we remember its power of endur-
ing long journeys and close captivity. The splen-

183

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

did results obtained on the California coast could
scarcely have been secured but for these quahties.
Sudden transplanting from salt water to fresh, and
long railway journeys in a limited quantity of
water, cause very slight mortality to this splendid
species, therefore it is practicable to stock new and
distant waters and thus multiply the pleasures of
the angling fraternity, while supplying the markets
with a delightful food-fish.

The value of a game-fish is dependent to a great
extent upon its versatihty, if we may attribute this
characteristic to a fish. It can be taken by many
reputable methods, including the use of artificial
flies, and thus gains a wide circle of admirers and
gratifies a great diversity of tastes.

Voracity. — The voracity of the striped bass con-
tributes to its merits as a game-fish. The necessity
of upbuilding such superb muscles makes it keen
and vigorous in the pursuit of its prey, and there-
fore always on the lookout for any object in the
water which promises to satisfy its prodigious ap-
petite. Notwithstanding its inherent qualities,
there is no reason to believe that the bass makes war
upon its own kind, as does the fresh-water black
bass, which is notorious for its cannibalism.

184

THE STRIPED BASS

Bate of Grrowth and Size Reached

This giant among the game-fishes starts from a
very small egg. Last year Mr. S. G. Worth,
of the United States Fisheries Bureau, recorded
35,000 eggs as the number in a United States
standard liquid quart. The egg is therefore smalle
than that of the shad, which is about an eighth o:
an inch in diameter before fertilization. The devel-
opment of the egg in water at a suitable tempera-
ture is very rapid. Mr. Worth states that the
embryo four hours old is about three sixteenths of
an inch in length. When four days old the young
are about a quarter of an inch in length, and at
four weeks measure about half an inch. Dr. C. C.
Abbott found young bass about one inch long in
the Delaware during the second week in June, and
by the middle of October some of them had reached
a length of four and a half inches. In a small pool
of fresh water in South Carolina some bass fed
upon crabs and oysters increased in about eleven
months from six inches to twenty inches in length.
In Rhode Island, bass confined in a pond grew
from half a pound to a pound in June, and to six
pounds by the following October.

The rate of growth naturally depends chiefly
upon the amount of food obtainable, suitable tem-
perature, and quality of the water. In California,

185

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

according to the anglers, the bass is not so dainty
a feeder as in the East; his appetite (voracity) ap-
pears to be more exacting, and he pays far less
attention to the details of placing bait upon the
hook. To use the expressive language of a recent
writer, " he can be caught with a big ' gob ' of clam
stuck on a hook so obviously that it would not fool
a cross-eyed crab."

The limit of growth varies with the locality. Big
fish are plentiful in various waters, but more espe-
cially on our Southern coasts. The very largest
on record was caught many years ago in the town
cove at Orleans, Mass. This was said to scale 112
pounds. At Cuttyhunk, in 1860, an individual
weighing 104 pounds was claimed. In a fish-
market at Baltimore, Md., Dr. J. A. Henshall, in
his boyhood days, saw a bass weighed which ex-
ceeded 100 pounds. Near Norfolk, Va., about 600
of the fish landed in one haul averaged sixty pounds
each, and several of them attained 105 pounds.
On the Pacific coast the fish have not been so
long established, and do not run so large as in
Atlantic waters, seldom reaching forty pounds in
weight.

Artificial Culture

The striped bass is said to spa^^ii naturally in
both fresh and brackish waters, but the work of the

186

THE STRIPED BASS

fish-culturist with this species has thus far been
limited to fresh-water localities.

Seth Green and Marcellus Holton were among
the early experimenters with the bass, their work
having been carried on more than thirty years ago
and just about the time of the beginning of artifi-
cial hatching by the United States Fish Commis-
sion. For a long period of years, for some reason or
reasons not well known, next to nothing was done
to increase the numbers of this valuable fish, al-
though desultory investigations were continued. In
the meantime new colonies of striped bass were es-
tablished in California, from which State we may
soon be compelled to obtain market supplies of the
fish for the East. As has been already stated, the
California Fish Commissioners, having observed
that the fish are not inclined to spread far from
their original centres, are introducing them at
points widely separated, hoping to create new and
successful fishing-grounds wherever the water con-
ditions permit.

Legal restrictions of one kind or another are
necessary for the permanence of bass-fishing. In
the East there is a close-time corresponding by sup-
position with the breeding season. In California
there is a continuous open season, but no bass under
three pounds in weight can be lawfully sold or had
in possession. The sale of very small bass in East-
ern markets has certainly been one of the causes

187

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

of the dearth of spawning-fish in our Northern
waters.

Seth Green handled the eggs just as he had suc-
cessfully managed the shad eggs, and in floating
boxes with a wire screen bottom tilted at a slight
angle to the surface of the stream by means of
lateral cleats fastened on the ends of the boxes.
Holton carried on some preliminary work at Wel-
don, N. C, in 1873. The United States Fish Com-
mission found the ripe fish in North Carolina in
May, 1879; but not until last year were operations
successfully carried out upon a large scale, and then
Weldon was again the scene of the work. There
Mr. Worth was surprised by the suddenness of the
natural spawning. Out of the whole number of
eggs collected, aggregating more than 13,000,000,
about five sixths were taken in a single night (May
6), and upward of 3,000,000 were furnished by a
single female.

The spawning females secured by Mr. Worth
ranged from three to fifty pounds in weight and
yielded from 14,000 eggs to the maximum of
3,220,000. The season continued from May 2 to
May 24, and the water temperature varied from
60° to 70° F. The average period of hatching was
forty- four hours, while Seth Green recorded eight
days for the same operation in the North, which
shows how important a part the water temperature
plays in the development of eggs.

188

THE STRIPED BASS

Before fertilization, according to Mr. Worth,
the egg has a beautiful green color which disap-
pears in the course of hatching. After absorbing
all the water it will hold in the hardening or plump-
ing process, it is nearly as large as the shad egg
and has about the same qualities for hatching pur-
poses. The oil in the embryo sacs is amber, and this
oil globule causes the young fish to assume an
oblique swimming-position with the head somewhat
raised.

Fishing Localities

Within easy reach from New York are many
good bass grounds. At Liberty Island, during the
ebb tide the fishing is from the landing, while on
the west side the beach offers the best available
spots. About a quarter of a mile from Liberty
Island a depression known as The Pot has been
noted for its good fishing. Robbins Reef; Sunken
Island; Staten Island shores from Dumb Beacon
to The Willows, and thence down to Sailors' Snug
Harbor; The Crib; The Nigger-Heads along the
Jersey shore ; The Sods, off Fitzgeralds ; Giff ords,
Staten Island ; and the shore at Eltingville, — have
been mentioned as favorable localities frequently
yielding good catches of bass. Along the Hudson
River front of the city between 125th and 155th
streets some fish have been taken.

Sandy Hook offers some good fishing by casting

189

THE basses: fresh-water and marine

outside the breakers. There are also good points
for surf fishing on the New Jersey coast from
Sandy Hook to Barnegat, especially Ocean Beach
and South Elberon. Boat fishing and trolling
around Staten Island have been successful at vari-
ous places, among them GiiFords, New Dorp, South
Beach, Eltingville, Huguenot, Annadale, Princess
Bar, and Tottenville. The Sods, on the outer beach
at GifFords, have yielded the best scores, the fishing
always taking place on flood tide, as it is done in
shallow water.

Excellent fishing has been enjoyed in Staten
Island Sound, near Buckwheat Island, in the vicin-
ity of a little creek running in there from the shore.
In the Raritan River, at The Hedges, above the
bridge at Perth Amboy, some bass have been
secured, also a few in the Rahway River at Trem-
ley. Allenhurst, N. J., provides excellent bass-
fishing at the flume at the foot of Deal Lake. The
presence of the fish is due to beds of sea-clams, or
skimmers, which provide choice food for the fish,
which run large, some of them being nearly fifty
pounds in weight. The Hackensack River was
once famous for its bass, but the fishing has been
destroyed by the injurious use of illegal nets.

At Hell Gate, notwithstanding the deterioration
of the waters by oil, trolling sometimes furnishes
good sport. Striped bass are also caught in Bowery
Bay, Jamaica Bay, from the piers of Coney Island,

190

THE STRIPED BASS

in Gravesend Bay, and along the Diker. A few
small fish are occasionally caught at the piers on the
Brooklyn side of the Bridge.

In addition to the city fishing-localities named
above, the Hudson River furnishes bass-fishing at
Fort Washington, Yonkers, Tarrytown, and Os-
sining. On Long Island Sound the fishing is some-
times good at New Rochelle, N. Y., and Stamford,
Conn.

Famous fishing-grounds exist off the coast of
Rhode Island, especially in the vicinity of Newport,
around Cuttyhunk and other islands between the
Vineyard and Buzzards Bay, as well as in the
channel between Naushon and Cape Cod.

In addition to the California fishing-places men-
tioned under the heading " Distribution," the latest
report of the Commissioners states that striped bass
weighing twelve pounds have been taken in the
clear waters of Feather River above Oroville.
They are found in large numbers in the Tuolumne
River above Modesto and in the Merced River, and
in the San Joaquin River they have been found as
far up stream as PoUasky.

Striped-Bass Clubs

The anglers of the California coast, rejoicing in
the abundance of bass, have formed numerous
striped-bass clubs since 1900. Thousands of people

191

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

enjoy the sport and have added to their table fare
a most excellent food-fish since the successful
transfer of the fish. On Sundays and holidays the
shores of San Francisco Bay and the banks of the
San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, as well as of
their tributaries, are lined with anglers equipped
for the new fishing.

The records of the striped-bass clubs and private
fishing-stands along the Atlantic coast unfortu-
nately show little now but vanished glories. From
one cause or another, and sometimes without appar-
ent cause, the sport has dwindled to insignificant
proportions, and some clubs which were once very
prosperous are at present almost deserted. Mr.
Daniel B. Fearing, of Newport, R. I., has kindly
furnished some data concerning the catch and notes
upon the supposed unfavorable influences which
have destroyed the bass angling.

The West Island Club, West Island, R. I., occu-
pied grounds mad,e famous by the writings of
Genio C. Scott. The records cover a period of
forty years and show considerable variation in the
number of fish caught. The best year, 1874,
yielded 2,406 bass, and the poorest catch numbered
only eleven fish, taken in 1904.

The Cuttyhunk Club, Cuttyhunk Island, Mass.,
organized in 1865, has never reached the record of
its first year, when 1,174 bass were captured; and
during the last fifteen years the results of angling

192

THE STRIPED BASS

were very discouraging. In 1902, for example,
only two bass were recorded. The f alling-off has
been attributed to extermination of the bass, and,
in part, to the presence of innumerable lobster-pots
in the vicinity.

The Pasque Island Club, Pasque Island, Mass.,
whose records have been kept since 1866, took 905
fish in 1868 and only one in 1889. In 1902 forty
were recorded. Seining for menhaden in Buzzards
Bay, sale of immature fish in the markets, and the
firing of heavy guns by war-ships and from Fort
Trumbull are assigned as causes of the scarcity of
big bass.

The Monument Club, Bourne, Mass., began its
record in 1873 and attained a maximum of 633
bass in 1878. Very few bass have been taken
during the last decade, owing probably to the dimi-
nution of menhaden, shrimp, and young fish form-
ing the food of the bass.

The Beaver Tail Club, Conanicut Island, R. I.,
has no accurate accounts of the catch, but 104 bass
were set down for 1890, since which date and until
1896 the number secured was small.

The Graves Point Club, Newport, R. I., has rec-
ords from 1881 to 1890, but nothing authentic since
1890. Before the club was formed Mr.Wilham Post,
while fishing at Graves Point, caught the largest
striped bass ever taken on rod and reel, a fish weigh-
ing seventy pounds several hours after its capture.

13 193

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

The Southside Sportsmen's Club, Oakdale, Long
Island, although not a striped-bass club, takes a
great many bass in Great River, but in 1904, for
some unknown reason, the catch was very poor.
The fishing is done with fly-spoons, bloodworms
and sandworms. Light tackle is used, as the fish
seldom reach ten pounds in weight. A few have
been taken with artificial flies.

No recent information is at hand concerning the
Newport Fishing Club, Southwest Point, New-
port, R. I., and the Squibnocket Club, Martha's
Vineyard, Mass. An old friend writes that he is
told that the fishing at Cuttyhunk and Seaconnet
Point clubs has been very poor for a number of
years, and the visits of members are few and far
between. Truly the time is ripe here for intelligent
fish-cultural enterprise.

Fishing Outfit

Clothing. — As the season for striped-bass fish-
ing is a long one and continues far into the cold and
inclement weather, the angler must be supplied
with plenty of warm clothing, including water-
proof jacket, mitts, and boots. A soft hat or cap,
overalls, and thumb-stalls for protection against
the friction of the line, are necessary parts of the
equipment.

Rods. — As the fish vary greatly in size, and the

194

THE STRIPED BASS

styles of fishing differ widely, there must naturally
be a corresponding variety in the character of the
rods used, depending upon the conditions to be met
by the angler. The materials generally used for
the rod are ash, lancewood, and Calcutta or Japa-
nese bamboo, either natural or split. Whatever the
materials, a jointed rod is preferable to any other.
The length and weight of the rod differ with cir-
cumstances. A casting-rod should be eight or eight
and a half feet long, and weigh from twelve to
sixteen or eighteen ounces.

The best rod, of course, in the opinion of most
anglers, is of split bamboo of superior quality and
workmanship, although one that will best stand
hard usage may be made of lancewood, greenheart,
or bethabara, which, however, would be somewhat
heavier than one of split bamboo. A very satis-
factory rod and much less expensive, besides pos-
sessing the advantage of lesser weight, is made of
the natural male Calcutta bamboo, known to anglers
as a " chum " rod.

The rod should be in not less than two pieces, and
some prefer to have it in three, when the length
reaches eight and a half feet. In some cases the
rod may be nine feet long, but it must have plenty
of spring and be much stiff er than trout and salmon
rods of the same dimensions. Two joints of bam-
boo with a butt of lancewood or some other heavy
wood, form a rod which meets with great favor.

195

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

The chief qualities required in a rod for sea
fishing are toughness, spring, and elasticity. It
should be silk-wound and have guides and tips of
agate or carnelian. The double bell-mouth guides
and a funnel top lined with agate are used on the
most expensive rod^s.

For bait-casting in fresh water a lighter rod will
answer, its length and weight depending on the
work to be accomplished. A light pliable rod not
exceeding nine feet in length will be suitable for
fishing in shallow bays and. lagoons, near river-
mouths, or in streams within tide limits. A two-
piece rod in ash and lancewood, with a length of
seven and a half feet and a weight of eight ounces,
or of split bamboo of lighter weight, can be used
with success.

For fly-fishing a different style of rod is needed.
Any good black-bass rod will prove effective in
striped-bass fishing. For still-fishing, where the
fish are small, one may have fine sport with a plain
rod combined with a float and sinker and with two
hooks on gut leaders. For trolling, when the bass
are not too large, expert anglers often use a trout-
rod eight or eight and a half feet long and weigh-
ing from four to six ounces.

Reels, — There is just as much variation in the
reels required for striped-bass fishing as there is in
the rods ; everything depends on the size of the fish
and the conditions surrounding it. Surf fishing,

196

THE STRIPED BASS

for instance, demands a reel made especially for that
method. The reel must be a quadruple multiplier
with bearings of jewels or steel, and having a capa-
city of holding from two hundred to three hundred,
yards of twelve- to eighteen- thread Cuttyhunk
line. The most serviceable reels for this fishing are
made of hard rubber and German silver, and cost
from ten to fourteen dollars each.

In fly-fishing the same tackle which is used for
black bass will serve quite as well for striped bass.

Lines, — The lines generally used for surf-
fishing are linen lines of the style known as Cutty-
hunk 9-18-thread, in lengths varying with the
character of the fishing. For still-fishing in sum-
mer or bait-fishing from the shore the line is usually
of braided linen, smallest size, in lengths of fifty
yards with a three-foot leader of single gut. In
trolling for comparatively small fish up to ten
pounds in weight, about 100 feet of braided linen
line, size E or F, or with 200 feet of size E for
larger bass, may be used. According to experts,
raw silk makes the best line. The sizes generally
used are 12-15-thread, though some use 18-thread.
Grass lines have frequently been employed, but
they require too much care, and unless well kept
they soon become unserviceable. Some of the best
linen lines, which come in 200-yard lengths, cost as
much as $2.50 each by the hundred.

For small bass up to two or three pounds in

197

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

weight, Nos. 1 or 2 Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks
on gut snells will be found suitable. In trolling,
Sproat hooks Nos. 2-0 to 3-0 on gut snells are
recommended for small fish, and Nos. 5-0 to 6-0
for larger bass. The best hooks for surf fishing on
the coast are knobbed Sproat or O'Shaughnessy
hooks, Nos. 5-0 to 8-0. These are secured to the
line by two half -hitches, with an additional half-
hitch to attach the loose end. In California the
anglers who troll on Lake Merritt use a 3-0 Wilson
hook, but it is to be noted that the fish are not so
large in those waters as in the East.

A chaT'acteristic outfit for Eastern anglers would
include twisted gut lead.ers with two three-foot
leaders in service, one of them attached to the line
with a brass swivel, the second fastened in like man-
ner to the first, and linked to the end of this, also
by means of a swivel, a small spinner of the screw-
propeller type. To the end of this spinner a stand-
ard hook, usually a 4-0 or 5-0, should be attached.
The best nine-foot leaders, made by looping three
leaders together and used for heavy bass, cost $7.50
a dozen. Increase in the length of a leader adds
greatly to its cost.

Sinkers and Sundries, — For still-fishing, sinkers
of different weights according to the strength of
the tide form a valuable adjunct, and over grassy
bottom a light float may be added with advantage
when using crab or shrimp for bait. Sometimes the

198

THE STRIPED BASS

fish will refuse the bait when suspended in mid-
water, and it becomes necessary to substitute a run-
ning sinker for the float and swivel sinker and let
the bait lie on the bottom until a bite is felt, when
the hook is to be sent home by a quick strike.

Additional appliances of great utility in surf
fishing are a long-handled gaif-hook m^de of the
finest steel and very sharp-pointed; a knife for
cutting up (or "chumming") the waste parts of
the menhaden, a spoon for throwing out the chum,
and thumb-stalls, or cots, made of woollen yarn,
leather, rubber, or other suitable material, to pro-
tect the thumbs from being chafed by the line. A
shoemaker's knife, well sharpened, makes an excel-
lent bait-knife.

Bait, — The striped bass is such an omnivorous
feeder, and his taste changes so frequently, that the
angler will use many different kinds of bait during
the fishing-season. No doubt the common shrimp
is more generally used than anything else, except
on the California coast, where many fine shrimps
are found, but are not necessary to tempt the appe-
tite of the bass. Little fish called shiners and sar-
dines, and, the clams of the region, form the usual
bill of fare. For trolling, the Golcher, Stewart, or
Wilson spoon, is used, with tackle which would be
considered unnecessarily heavy in the East, but
which may at any time have to stand the weight and
strain of a great salmon instead of that of a bass.

199

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

For still-fishing from the shore or from an an-
chored boat, in addition to the ever-useful shrimp,
excellent service is performed by crabs of several
kinds, preferably in the soft or shedder state. The
blue (or edible) crab is the one most frequently
employed, but the calico crab, or lady-Crab, also
serves a useful purpose wherever found. Shedder-
lobster is another well-known and sometimes highly
effective bait which is no longer to be obtained in
localities near New York. At one time lobster tail
was a favorite casting-bait at Gay Head, with the
remainder of the animal cut up for chum.

A very tempting morsel is furnished by the
marine worms (the sandworm and bloodworm of
our sand beaches), used in trolling or still-fishing.
The bloodworm, sometimes called whiteworm, often
reaches a length of twelve to fifteen inches, and
two or three worms are needed for a single bait.
These are threaded through the whole length of the
body and must cover the hook entirely from point
to snell. Some anglers combine this luxury with
a spinner or other artificial bait, but this is unneces-
sary and wasteful.

The mollusks play an important part in bass-
fishing. The hard clam or quahaug, the skimmer
or hen-clam, the soft-shelled clam, and the scallop,
all have their distinctive uses and supplement the
work of the shrimp and crab tribes most hand-
somely. Some of them are difficult to apply to the

200

Fishing from a Stand

THE STRIPED BASS

hook securely, but the fish will sometimes prefer
them to all other lures. The skimmer is known as
an excellent bait at Allenhurst, N. J., where a great
bed of these clams attracts bass of large size. The
squid, if it were easier to obtain, would prove highly
effective, as it is one of the natural foods of striped
bass and other game-fishes. Supplies may be had
around Martha's Vineyard, and the islands between
Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay, with more or
less regularity in summer. Doubtless the salted
squid would serve very well when the fresh material
is lacking, just as it does in the commercial cod-
fishery.

Small fish of many kinds, either alive or dead,
will always hold, their place, because they are the
legitimate prey of the large game-fishes. To a con-
siderable extent the bass depends for its rapid
growth on such resources. In California the shiner
and sardine are the staple baits for trolling or still-
fishing. As a matter of fact, any of the numerous
silvery or translucent minnows of the coast waters
will attract the game. On our Eastern shores we
have an abundance of little fish in every way suit-
able in size and coloration for the angler's needs,
— silversides, spearing, killifish, lant, smelt, salt-
water mullet, eel, alewife, and menhaden. One of
the killies is so well associated with the bass in the
capacity of a food-supply that it has received the
name of bass killie. This is one of the largest of

201

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

its kind and has different markings for the sexes,
females having longitudinal narrow dark streaks
while males have dark bars arranged vertically.
The menhaden is the most famous of all baits in
surf fishing, serving not only to toll the fish by pro-
ducing an oily floating scum, but also to furnish
a choice morsel which no right-minded bass can well
refuse.

For a trolling-bait on certain rivers, especially
the Susquehanna, an eel-tail is sometimes used suc-
cessfully. When the skin of the eel only is taken,
it is better to cast by hand, attaching a small sinker
to the front of the bait. The skin is stripped from
the vent backward, turned inside out, and drawn
over two hooks, one at the front and another at the
rear. The lure must be pulled rapidly through the
water, to give it a lifelike appearance.

Another bait, seldom heard of at present, but
formerly much esteemed, is the roe of the shad.
There is no question that bass are fond of this deli-
cacy, because they follow the shad up their spawn-
ing rivers for the express purpose of enjoying such
food. The principal objection to the roe is that it
is not nice to handle, and its preparation is some-
what difficult. At the same time some anglers con-
tinue to fish with it and keep it in jars through the
summer by covering the whole roe with hot tallow,
sealing it tightly, and placing it in a cold spot. In
order to prevent the rapid destruction of the roe it

202

THE STRIPED BASS

is sometimes enclosed in mosquito-netting and fast-
ened securely to the hook.

Artificial lures for trolling include the bone or
block-tin squid, spoons, spinners, and their allies,
preferably attached to a single hook. A silver spin-
ner is frequently used in the East combined with
whiteworms completely concealing the hook. Some
authorities discourage the addition of natural bait
to the artificial. On San Francisco Bay, in the fall,
many anglers troll in Raccoon Straits, usually with
one of three standard spoons No. 6 or No. 7.
Heavy tackle is required to take care of any stray
quinnat salmon which may take a fancy to the lure,
and. it is nothing unusual to hook bass weighing
from twenty to thirty pounds. Anglers on Lake
Merritt, Cal., in trolling with shiner or sardine, use
two swivels on the leader, — one at the top and one
at the bottom. Where the leader is attached to the
line there is placed a sphere of lead about three
eighths of an inch in diameter, pierced with a hole
large enough to allow the line to run through it
easily. This is to prevent ravelling of the line.

Artificial flies are available for striped-bass fish-
ing in fresh or brackish water only, and they can
be used to the best advantage in the spring when
bass are ascending fresh waters. Fishing is most
productive of results about sundown. Showy flies
are the favorites, — red ibis, blue jay, oriole, royal
coachman, polka, silver doctor, Parmachenee Belle,

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

and similar gaudy creations. Trolling the fly is
sometimes the only effectual method, giving ample
length of line and working the lure at the surface
of the water.

Methods of Capture

Still-Fishing with Bait, — Still-fishing with bait
from an anchored boat or from the bank is very
general on both coasts. This yields the best results
in rather shallow water of the estuaries, in the tide-
ways, or " thoroughfares," at proper stages of the
tide, near river mouths, or in the tidal waters of
rivers. Expert anglers even beyond tide-water
often make good catches at the edges of rapids in
deep eddies near big rocks. In the estuaries and
river mouths the best fishing stages of tide are the
last of the ebb and the first of the flood, while the
full tide is best in shallow bays and lagoons.

The rod should be comparatively short, eight to
nine feet, rather stifl*, but elastic, and not much
over eight ounces in weight. Wooden rods will
weigh more than split bamboo, but a combination
of wood and bamboo off'ers the most satisfactory
result. The stiff*ness of the rod facilitates the use
of heavy sinkers, which are often necessary in tide-
ways.

The reel adapted to this fishing is a good multi-
plier, and if intended for use around salt water it

204

THE STRIPED BASS

should be nickel-plated or composed of German
silver and hard rubber. Fifty yards of the smallest
size braided linen line, with a three- foot single-gut
leader, or with two leaders (one of three feet and
the other two feet), and with Sproat or O'Shaugh-
nessy hooks ranging in size from No. 1 to No. 3, or
even larger for the big fish, will be needed. A
swivel sinker for the attachment of the line and
leaders is part of the outfit. A landing-net will
be a very useful adjunct.

When fishing over grassy bottom a float attached
about three feet above the sinker will be found very
useful. The sinker is to have two swivels, one
above for the line and one below for the leaders.
The weight of the sinker must vary with the
strength of the tide.

Shrimp bait is fastened by passing the point of
the hook under the back plates. Shrimp and crab
are two of the most eff*ective baits known to the
angler. Throughout the summer the crab Avill
usually prove the more useful of the two. The bait
must sometimes lie quietly on the bottom, but is
usually suspended in mid-water and kept in con-
stant motion by jerking the rod. Only a single
hook is used by some expert anglers.

Trolling, — Trolling with marine worms, min-
nows, natural squid, eel-tail, or artificial lures of
any kind, requires a fairly stiff but pliable rod
eight or nine feet long, braided linen line from 100

205

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

to 200 feet in length, from size F to size E, depend-
ing upon the weight of the bass, and with Sproat
hooks No. 2-0 to 6-0. The baits generally used in
the East are bloodworms, live minnows, or other
small fish, part of an eel's tail, or some artificial
creation such as a squid, spoon, or spinner with or
without the addition of natural bait. In California it
is customary to pay out seventy-five feet of line on
the flats, and about forty feet in deeper water. Here
also a favorite line is the 15- to 18-strand Cuttyhunk.

The boat is rowed alongshore, especially close to
the margin of water plants, which furnish shelter
for minnows, or over sunken reefs or ledges of
rock, and near the border between rapids and the
deep eddies caused by intercepting rocks. It is
not necessary to strike the fish when a bite is felt,
but allow it to hook itself and then play it carefully
and bring it to the gaff or landing-net.

Heaving and Hauling in the Surf, — Heaving
and hauling in the surf with hand, lines is a method
employed to some extent for striped bass as well
as for bluefish. Not much skill is required for such
fishing except in securing the bait to the hook and
in making the cast smoothly. The heaviest Cutty-
hunk line is required, and finger-mitts to protect
the hands. The bait may be spearing, killie, lobs-
ter, alewife, menhaden, eelskin, or any of the
known foods of the bass. The bait is usually
drawn rapidly through the water.

206

THE STRIPED BASS

Casting with Menhaden Bait. — Casting in the
surf with menhaden bait is regarded as the highest
type of expert anghng for striped bass on the
Atlantic coast. The most elaborate outfits and
most expensive estabhshments go with this style
of fishing.

The character of the rod will differ according to
the tastes and means of the angler, but it must be
decidedly stiff er than one used for trout or salmon.
The approved length is from eight to nine feet, and
the most expensive kinds are made from split bam-
boo, preferably with a butt piece of some hard
wood. Guides of the double bell-mouthed pattern
and tips of the funnel style, both tips and guides
lined with agate or adamant, are associated with
this form of rod. Some anglers use a rod made of
greenheart, bethabara, or lancewood about eight
and a half feet long. This will stand rough usage
better than the split-bamboo rod. Another style,
known as the " chum " rod, is made of natural
male Calcutta bamboo in two or three pieces.

The reel is another important part in casting
with menhaden. Reels are made expressly for surf
fishing and must have bearings of agate or steel,
so that they may run noiselessly and with perfect
freedom. They should hold at least three hundred
yards of 12-18-thread Cuttyhunk line.

Hooks intended for this mode of fishing have
already been described, also such accessories as

207

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

thumb-stalls, " chum " knife and spoon, and a gaff-
hook of the best quality and workmanship.

Menhaden is the bait almost universally used, but
the tail of a lobster without any remnants of shell
is sometimes substituted for menhaden. In South-
ern waters a silver mullet five or six inches long,
hooked through the lips, or some other fish of
silvery color, has been successfully employed in
casting. The supposed advantage of the men-
haden is that its oil, which floats off upon the
water, attracts the bass to the anglers' stand, but
the attraction may really be due to the fragments
of fish which are thrown out in chunmiing.

Some anglers attain great skill in casting men-
haden bait and claim to reach a distance of 120
yards, which is far greater than the average dis-
tance of the cast. In making the cast the line is
reeled up to about two feet from the tip, and one
hand grasps the rod above the reel and the other
below it, the thumb of the lower hand, with its
protecting thumb-stall, controlling the line so that
it travels at exactly the same rate as the bait, which
must be delivered with great accuracy at the end
of the cast. The motion of casting is a peculiar
one and is acquired only after long practice. It
is really more like throwing than the overhand cast-
ing. The cast may be made with either hand, the
body being turned to one side or the other as occa-
sion requires. The one great essential is to deliver

208

THE STRIPED BASS

the bait at the surface of the water without a jerk,
and the motion of the reel must be stopped as soon
as the bait touches the water.

As soon as the bait sinks to the bottom the hne
is reeled in slowly, and the casting is continued until
a fish is hooked. The first dash of the fish after
hooking is the most critical stage of the fishing,
and the bass may sometimes rush toward the angler
faster than the slack can be taken up, or he may
chafe the line against sharp rocks or entangle it in
weeds. All of these tricks must be skilfully met
and overcome. The natural difiiculties associated
with this fishing, in addition to the strength and
endurance of the bass, call for good judgment and
superb skill on the part of the angler. In landing
big fish through the surf the utmost care is required.

The preparation and application of the men-
haden bait are very simple. The fish is first scaled,
then a slice is cut from each side from head to tail,
leaving little except the backbone, the head, and
the fins, which are utilized later for " chum." The
hook is inserted in the fleshy side of the strip, and
then returned through the edges of the scaly side
in such manner as entirely to conceal the shank.
The bait must be tied on the hook, or it will soon be
washed off by the action of the water. After two
baits are cut from the sides, the remainder of the
fish is chopped up and thrown into the water; the
solid portions sinking at greater or less distance

14 209

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

from the shore, while the oil covers the surface for
a considerable space.

The greatest difficulty in this method of fishing
results from the over-running of the line, and to
prevent this taxes the ingenuity of the fisherman
to its limit.

Fishing with Artificial Flies, — In fly-fishing
for striped bass it is often advisable to troll the fly,
or it may be cast in a strong current with consider-
able length of line and manipulated at the surface
of the water. This method of fishing succeeds best
late in the evening. The styles of flies which have
been most successfully used are the bright-colored
ones, and, in general terms, such as would attract
the black bass in fresh waters.

The fishing is most productive on cloudy days
and dark nights and when the water is rough and
roily. Dark, stormy nights are most suitable for
taking the big bass. In sea fishing the rocky ledges
attract the biggest fish when the surf is running
high.

Cluh-Houses and Fishing- Stands, — The sub-
stantially built fishing-stands, resembling the " pul-
pits " of swordfishing vessels, are a characteristic
feature of the club properties on our New England
coasts and islands. Stout planks and iron railings
firmly bolted to the solid rock enable the angler
to maintain his station near his favorite feeding-
grounds, no matter how fiercely winds blow or surf

210

Striped Bass Fishing on the New England Coast

THE STRIPED BASS

beats against the shore. Clad in warm and water-
proof clothing, and provided with all the needful
appliances for the capture of his mighty prey, he
braves the elements and patiently endures the long
struggle for the sake of the highest trophy possible
outside of the salmon regions. Blow, ye winds!
Roar, ye surges! The stout heart of the angler
courts and defies your threatenings, for here revels
wild life and matches its cunning against man's
strength and skill!

211

THE WHITE BASS

THIS is the nearest relative of the striped
bass, and the only other fish belonging to
the same genus which includes that fa-
mous species. It is very much smaller
than the striped bass and is found only in fresh
water.

Description

The white bass may be readily known by its eight
or more longitudinal blackish streaks on the sides,
the lower ones being more or less interrupted. The
body is oblong, deep and thin, making quite a con-
trast in these respects with the striped bass. The
general color is silvery, tinged with gold on the
sides.

The head forms one fourth of the total length in-
cluding the tail-fin. The depth of the body is one
third of the same length. The upper jaw reaches
to below the middle of the eye. The snout and the
diameter of the eye are about equal. The teeth are
in brush-like bands on the jaws, the tongue, and

212

THE WHITE BASS

the middle and sides of the roof of the mouth. The
outline of the back is much curved, and the two
back-fins are well separated. The first back-fin
has nine spines ; the second has one spine and four-
teen soft rays. The fin behind the vent has three
spines and eleven or twelve rays. There are eight
rows of scales between the lateral line and the base
of the second back-fin; thirteen rows between the
lateral line and the beginning of the fin behind
the vent; sixty rows in the lateral line.

A specimen obtained by Mr. James Annin in
Oneida Lake was twelve and a quarter inches long;
its head three inches; its depth four inches; its
eye nine sixteenths of an inch; weight, sixteen and
a half ounces.

Common Names

The fish is usually called white bass, but is some-
times styled the fresh-water striped bass. The
Canadian name silver bass probably belongs to this
fish. Rafinesque described it under the name Perca
chrysops, meaning " gold-eye," in 1820.

Distribution

This fish abounds in the region of the Great
Lakes and is widely distributed also in the valleys
of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It is found in
Oneida Lake and has been freely introduced into

913

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

many lakes in which it is not native. Greenwood
Lake, in New York and New Jersey, has been
stocked with it by the New Jersey Fish and Game
Commission.

Favorite Haunts

The white bass prefers the deeper parts of rivers
and is best adapted for life in lakes and ponds. It
is said to be a good fish for rearing in artificial
ponds. In April and May it is found near the
shore or in river mouths, where it spawns. In
summer and fall it resorts to deeper waters and to
the lakes. The rocky coves around the Bass Islands
of Put-in-Bay, Lake Erie, and the upper waters
of the Mississippi, especially Lake Pepin, are not-
able for the number and size of their white bass.
The Detroit River furnishes famous fishing for
this species. " At the mouth of the Fox River, in
Wisconsin, these fish are doubtless more numerous
than in any other single locality, or were so a few
years ago. The favorite bait there is a minnow,
at which they will bite all night, and a score of a
hundred white bass in a few hours is not unusual.
When the anchor is hauled up they seem to be as
ravenous as when the first bait was thrown out." —
Harris,

2U

THE WHITE BASS

Habits

This bass swims in schools while feeding or mi-
grating, and thus contributes to the score of the
angler. All that is necessary is to provide suitable
bait or lure and tackle, and watch the direction in
which the schools are headed, and the fish will do
their part handsomely. They are often in shallow
water, or near the surface, so the artificial fly has
an opportunity to play its part. In the spring they
enter streams tributary to lakes, and are usually
most abundant off the points washed by channels
or where the streams are narrowest. The fish are
pretty generally distributed and may be taken
almost anywhere and at any time. In summer and
fall they will be most readily caught late in the
afternoon until sundown.

The white bass feeds upon minnows, crayfish,
and other fresh-water crustaceans, small mollusks,
and the young of fishes. It is said to devour many
young whitefish on the spawning-grounds. The
spawning-season is in May and June, and the eggs
are deposited near shore or in the mouths of rivers.

Qualities

Voracity is one of the characteristics for which
it is noted, and this makes it a free biter, always

215

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

ready to accept bait or fly if it looks good to eat.
There are few fresh-water fishes that excel the
white bass as a source of sport with light tackle.
It can be caught in large numbers with bait or
artificial fly, and gives excellent play. As a food-
fish it is highly esteemed, its flesh being considered
quite as good as that of the black basses.

Size and Rate of Growth

The shape of the body changes with age, adult
individuals showing much greater depth than the
young. A fish in good condition will weigh about
one pound when one foot long, and its depth will
be about one third of its length. The fish is said
to reach the weight of five pounds in the Ouachita
River, Arkansas.

Methods of Capture

The white bass is taken with bait by still-fishing,
or by casting either from the shore or from an
anchored boat. A small silvery minnow hooked
through the lips makes a very good bait. It takes
the artificial fly also with great readiness, but only
in shallow water or when the fish are schooling near
the surface. Fly-fishing gives the best results in
spring, when it may be practised at any time of
day.. A trout fly-rod of six to seven and a half

S16

THE WHITE BASS

ounces, with small click-reel and very fine enamelled
silk line, will give the best satisfaction. Small flies
tied on hooks No. 5 to No. 7, and of almost any of
the standard patterns for brook-trout, will attract
this bass. The hackles, the drakes, stone-fly, Mon-
treal, Henshall, Seth Green, silver doctor, and sev-
eral others have been used with success. Norris
and a companion once caught, in a small Canadian
creek opposite Detroit, near sundown, twenty-five
white bass, averaging nearly one pound each, with
a fly whose wings were made of the end of a
peacock's tail feather. " In the Ouachita River,
Arkansas, a scarlet and white fly seems to be the
favorite lure."

For bait-fishing use a black-bass or trout rod
weighing seven or eight ounces and about eight
feet long. The reel should be a good multiplier,
and the line a very small calibre of braided silk.
A fine gut leader three feet long, and hooks num-
bered 3 or 4, on fine gut snells, form part of the
outfit. The bait should be a small minnow hooked
through both lips. The angler may fish from
points at the edge of currents or in the deep pools
of streams, but an anchored boat off^ers the best
opportunity. The bait may be manipulated either
by still-fishing or by casting. In good locali-
ties, when the fish are moving freely, the angler
will have little time to attend to anything but the
fishing.

. 217

THE WHITE PERCH

DURING the War of the Revolution,
Schoepf , a Hessian surgeon stationed on
Long Island, described a number of our
common fishes without naming them
scientifically. One of these, the perch or river
perch, he recorded as an inhabitant of the coasts of
New York and Long Island, in and at the mouths
of fresh-water streams. It was left for Gmelin to
give it the name Perca americana in his edition of
Linnasus's " Systema Naturae," in 1788. In 1814
Dr. Mitchill established the genus Morone for the
same fish, and now our white perch is referred to in
the books under the name Morone americana.

The genus Morone as now accepted includes the
white perch and the yellow bass — another illus-
tration of the possible confusion resulting from too
great dependence upon comimon names alone. Mo-
rone differs from the striped-bass genus in having
the back-fins joined, the spines strong, the anal fin
with ten soft rays, the anal spines not graduated
(that is, the second and third are nearly equal and

318

THE WHITE PERCH

much longer than the first) , the jaws nearly equal,
and no teeth on the base of the tongue.

Description

The white perch has an oblong body, its depth
about three eighths of the length without the tail-
fin. The back is convex. The mouth is moderately
large, the upper jaw reaching backward a little
past the front of the eye. The eye is nearly as
long as the snout, and its length is contained five
and a half times in the length of the head. The
head forms one third of the length without the
tail-fin. The third and longest anal spine is two
fifths as long as the head; the second spine is
one third as long as the head; the first spine is
less than one half as long as the second. There
are nine spines in the first back-fin, one spine and
twelve soft rays in the second. The anal fin has
three spines and ten rays.

There are seven rows of scales between the lat-
eral line and the beginning of the first back-fin,
eleven rows between the lateral line and the edge of
the belly, and the line itself pierces fifty-one scales.
The back-fins are separated by a deep notch, but
connected by a low membrane. The color of the
upper parts of the body is grayish or greenish;
the sides are silvery; the young have pale longi-
tudinal streaks. The great variation in colors is

S19

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

responsible for such names as red perch, black
perch, ruddy bass, gray perch, and yellow perch.

Common Names

Schoepf called this the perch or river perch, no
doubt adopting a term in use among the fishermen.
Mitchill used the name of red perch and stated that
when not in the breeding-season it is known as
black perch because its colors are browner and
darker. In his " Fishes of New York," De Kay
described it as the ruddy bass. In Great Egg
Harbor Bay, N. J., individuals taken in salt water
are sometimes called yellow perch or peerch. Norris
employs for it the names white perch and gray
perch. The name most widely used is white perch.

Distribution

The species ranges from Nova Scotia to South
Carolina and is found in both salt and fresh water.
Mitchill saw specimens fourteen inches long and
nearly five inches deep from Quogue, L. I. Bell-
port, L. I., has been noted for its winter fishery for
white perch. The author has occasionally found
it in various parts of Great South Bay, as at
Smith's Point, Whale House Hole, and Swan
River; also in the east end of Shinnecock Bay in

220

THE WHITE PERCH

the fresh water of Head of Creek, near South-
ampton. The white perch is never plentiful in
Gravesend Bay; it abounds in lakes of Central
Park, New York, and Prospect Park, Brooklyn.
Near Montauk, L. I., the fish is plentiful and
grows very large. Eugene Smith found it com-
mon in brackish waters near New York all the
year; he also had it from fresh water. Dr. Mearns
states that it remains in the Hudson throughout the
year and is caught abundantly in winter in nets
set through the ice. It was reported to him that
individuals weighing two or three pounds were
caught in Oscawana Lake, Putnam County, N. Y.
In the vicinity of Wood's Hole, Mass., the white
perch is abundant in fresh-water ponds connected
with salt water. Fresh-water ponds and lakes in
many portions of the New England States are well
stocked with this fish, and in some of them it
reaches a large size. In the tidal creeks all along
the east coast from New York to South Carolina
white perch furnish excellent fishing, and the fish
ascend many large rivers far above the limits of
tide. It is doubtful if the species extends its range
as far south as Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

Abundance

The white perch congregates in large schools and
is one of the commonest of our pan-fishes. Dr.

221

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Abbott has recorded that as many as 240 have been
taken with a line in a few hours, and the late A. M.
Spangler reported catches of 600 or 700 in a day
by two rods, the fish weighing from three quarters
to one and a quarter pounds. It is a lover of brack-
ish water and may be found in tidal creeks in vast
numbers in the company of mummichogs, silver-
sides, and eels.

Habits

Small indi\dduals ascend streams into fresh
water, associating with small striped bass and feed-
ing upon young eels and small minnows. It re-
sembles the striped bass in its feeding-habits, but
differs from this in its tendency to seek warm
waters. It has a varied diet, including the spawn
of other fish, especially of the shad, insects and their
larvae, worms, shrimp, minnows, and small eels,
which they pursue in the rivers with much eagerness.

Some of the fish are said to hibernate in the deep
salt water of the bays, but others are found under
the ice of rivers in the winter. The migratory
schools which go into fresh- water streams enter them
in spring soon after the ice and snow-water have
run off. During the summer the perch are found
swimming around the piers or the timbers sup-
porting bridges, or chasing minnows on the flood-
tide high up the stream among the water-lilies.

Striped Bass

Sea Bass

Small-mouthed Black Bass

THE WHITE PERCH

sometimes ready to take a small shrimp or other
suitable bait without much ceremony, but occa-
sionally leaving a locality suddenly when the feed-
ing-grounds are disturbed by seines.

At the beginning of the fishing-season the perch
follows its food, to the limits of the tide-ways.
During summer, on the ebb tide, it is in deep water,
on sandy or rocky bottoms or mussel-beds, or
around submerged wrecks and stone piles. On the
flood it moves along the margins of creeks and
rivers, following the minnows into the water-plants
wherein they find a home and partial shelter. Al-
though usually living upon animal food the perch
sometimes appears to take brackish-water seaweeds
into its stomach, perhaps for the sake of the small
shells and crustaceans found upon them.

The spawning-season is in May and June. The
eggs are small and very adhesive; they number
about 40,000 to the fish of average size and are
hatched in three or four days. The first experi-
ments with artificial hatching were made before the
improved methods of separating the eggs were
understood, and. the results were far from satis-
factory ; yet some were hatched in six days in water
varying in temperature from 58° to 60° F. After
the spawning-season is ended the fish seek deeper
waters in which to recuperate.

SS8

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Qualities

As a pan-fish this species is a great favorite.
The flesh is white, firm, flaky, and of excellent fla-
vor. Few fishes on the east coast are more highly-
esteemed. Norris was the great apostle of the white
perch. He described in detail the modes of fishing
and also the best methods of cooking. For fry-
ing he recommended that the fish be rolled in
grated cracker or coarse corn meal and moderately
browned. For a piquant dish he gives the follow-
ing suggestions:

" Cut off the heads and tails and fry enough to lay them
open ; take out the backbone and ribs, dividing each into
two slices; then put them in the pan again and brown
them in coarse com meal, pouring over them, when nearly
done, a little Worcestershire sauce or walnut catsup, and
serve them up with drawn butter and an additional quan-
tity of sauce or catsup."

As a game-fish the white perch ranks very high.
Its known voracity makes it a free biter on many
kinds of bait, and with light tackle the angler may
be certain of good sport provided he can locate the
schools. The fish rises fairly well to the artificial
fly in fresh-water streams and ponds. Henshall
relates an experience which illustrates the persist-
ency of the fish: a white perch was caught four

224

THE WHITE PERCH

times in succession in the Gunpowder River before
it was finally killed.

Size

The average length is about nine inches, and the
weight half a pound or less; but many individ-
uals measuring fourteen inches and weighing two
pounds or more have been taken in New England
waters. In Oscawana Lake, Putnam County,
N. Y., it is said, some of the perch weigh two or
three pounds.

Methods of Capture

The requisites for white-perch fishing are: a
light rod, a very fine braided linen line, a leader of
single gut about three feet long, and hooks Nos. 6
to 8 on gut snells. A small multiplying reel may
be used if desired. A sinker is needed in tide-ways,
to keep the bait off the bottom, as the fish will
not take bait on the bottom unless it is moving.
Shrimp, crabs, and worms are most frequently em-
ployed, and to these a life-like action must be
given. A float is required in slack-water fishing
in the vicinity of water-plants. The float is to be
so placed as to hold the hooks well off^ the bottom.

The best baits are : shrimp, shedder-crab, worms,
young eels, and small minnows. The pearl minnow

15 925

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

is sometimes effective in eddies where tides sweep
the end of a pier. Shrimp and shedder-crab are
choice baits for brackish waters; worms are killing
in the deep pools of fresh tidal rivers ; small pieces
of fish, little minnows, or quite young eels are good
on the flood tide along the margin of water-plants.

In brackish water the best fishing is to be had
from an anchored boat at half tides; full tide is
best in tidal rivers; low water finds the perch in
deep holes among rocks or sunken timbers. A com-
mon practice is to row up a tidal creek on the ebb
as far as possible, collect shrimp, and fish on the
young flood, using a small shrimp on a fine hook
and sometimes adding an artificial fly or two, cast-
ing moderately close to the banks. Some anglers
have been successful on warm May days in casting
with a single small eel, moved like a heavy fly.

" Large white perch are frequently caught at
night along the mud flats of our Eastern rivers.
The angler runs the bow of his boat into the soft
mud near the shore on the incoming tide, and with
a rod about four feet long fishes from the stern
of his boat without using a float. As the tide rises
he shoves the boat farther up on the flat, as the
large perch follow the feeding minnows as the tide
grows and bite freely at the garden worms com-
monly used as bait when flshing by this method.

" But it is at Betterton, Md., at the head
of Chesapeake Bay, where the white perch excel

226

THE WHITE PERCH

in numbers and feeding-powers. A few years ago,
at this place, two other fishermen and I caught
700 perch, averaging over half a pound each, in
about two hours. Two boatmen were kept busy
preparing crab-bait, baiting the hooks, and taking
the captured fish from them. Our tackle was a
species of * paternoster ' (so called by English
fishermen), a hand-line with a heavy lead at the
bottom (the tide is very strong at Betterton).
From four to six hooks were attached to each line,
about five inches apart, and when the pluck of a
fish, always a strong one, was felt, the barb of the
hook was fastened into its jaw with a jerk. Before
the Hne could be hauled aboard, another, a third,
fourth, fifth, or sixth fish would take a hold. Perch
scores were then estimated by peach-crates, as when
that fruit was in high season the perch was most
plentiful and they were packed in the baskets used
in shipping peaches to market." — Harris.

Fly-fishing is most productive in fresh-water
ponds not connected with the sea, or well up fresh-
water streams. A variety of small flies has been
employed — dark midge, gray drake, red ibis,
grizzly king, oriole, coachman — tied on Nos. 7
or 8 hooks.

227

THE YELLOW BASS

IN 1860 Dr. Theodore Gill described the west-
em white perch, better known as yellow bass
or brassy bass, from type specimens collected
in the vicinity of St. Louis and at New
Orleans. The fish had long been known to fisher-
men, but had received no scientific description up
to that time.

The genus Morone was established by Mitchill
in 1814 for the white perch and some other fish
which he supposed to be nearly related to it. The
only two American members of this genus are
those above mentioned, one of them living in salt
water, brackish water, or fresh-water ponds in the
East, the other inhabiting the Mississippi Valley,
extending a short distance up the Ohio and into
certain streams and lakes of northern Indiana, —
lakes Tippecanoe, Eagle, Pike, Centre, and Chap-
man, — also Eel River.

. Description

The yellow bass resembles the white perch in
shape and is very diflFerent from the white bass,

228

THE YELLOW BASS

from which it is easily distinguished by its much
larger eye and mouth, very much higher first back-
fin, and much longer second spine of the anal fin.
It has also larger and rougher scales than the
white bass, and its color is brassy yellow instead
of silvery. It longitudinal black stripes are more
pronounced.

The body is oblong-ovate, the outline of the
back much arched. The head is flattened above and
rather pointed. The eye is large, its diameter equal
to the length of the snout. The mouth is oblique,
and the hind end of the upper jaw reaches to below
the middle of the eye. The back-fins are slightly
connected by membrane; the first is high, its fourth
spine being much more than half as long as the
head. The second anal spine is half as long as
the head. The head forms one third of the total
length without the tail-fin. The first back-fin has
nine spines; the second, one spine and twelve rays.
The anal fin has three spines and nine rays. The
lateral line pierces fifty scales.

Color in life, brassy tinged with olivaceous
above; seven very marked black stripes on the
sides, those below the lateral line interrupted so
that the posterior part alternates with the anterior.

The fish reaches a length of eighteen inches, and
a weight of five pounds; individuals weighing three
pounds are not rare, but the usual weight is from
one to two pounds.

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Common Names

Yellow bass is the name usually applied to the
fish; but it is known also as brassy bass, and in
Louisiana it is called the bar-fish, on account either
of its stripes or of its habit of congregating in
great numbers upon the shoals of clear-water
branches and bayous which empty into the Missis-
sippi, to feed upon minnows and shiners as sug-
gested by Hallock.

Distribution

The yellow bass is found chiefly in the lower
Mississippi River and tributaries, reaching Cincin-
nati and appearing sometimes in northern Indiana.
About 1872 it was very common in the small lakes
of Kosciusko County, and at the present time a
few are taken every year, especially after a June
freshet, according to Jordan & Evermann.

Favorite Haunts

The fish prefers the deep pools in rivers and
clear-water bayous and is to be looked for at the
foot of rapids and riffles. The St. Francis River,
in Arkansas, and the head of the Yazoo Pass, in
Mississippi, are famous fishing-grounds. In the
early morning it resorts to the bars on which min-

THE YELLOW BASS

nows feed, and is there associated with the large-
mouthed hiack bass, bent upon the same errand.

Hgbits

It feeds principally upon small minnows. The
spawning-season is in spring.

Qualities

The yellow bass is a favorite food-fish and with
light tackle yields excellent sport. The flesh is
fully equal to that of the white bass, for which it
provides an acceptable substitute in the lower Mis-
sissippi Valley, and many anglers consider it su-
perior to the black basses.

Methods of Capture

The same tackle and modes of angling described
for white bass will serve for the yellow bass. West-
ern anglers use practically the same appliances as
for the black basses, the crappies, and the white
bass.

231

THE SEA-BASS

FISH families often include members of
strikingly diverse appearance. The sea-
bass is a near relative of the striped bass,
and yet it resembles the groupers more
strongly and would not at once be associated with
the striped bass, the white bass, the yellow bass,
and the white perch. Its back-fins are scarcely
notched; the tail-fin is three-lobed or double con-
cave ; the anal fin has few soft rays ; the belly-fins
begin in advance of the breast-fins ; and the colora-
tion is very different from that of the striped-bass
tribe.

Description

The sea-bass has a stout, ovate body with the
back somewhat elevated. The depth is one third
of the length without the tail-fin and nearly equals
the length of the head. The mouth is rather large
and very oblique; the upper jaw extends beyond
the level of the front of the eye; the lower jaw
projects forward beyond the upper. The eye is

232

THE S E A-B ASS

large and placed high, its diameter about one fifth
the length of the head. Canine teeth are present,
but scarcely noticeable. The teeth are all fixed, in
broad bands. Spines of the first back-fin strong,
the middle ones longest, but less than half as long
as the head.

The spines, except the first, frequently with a
filament at the tip. The breast-fin is very long,
reaching to the vent. The belly-fins also reach
as far back as the vent. The tail-fin is double
concave, and the upper lobe is sometimes produced
into a short filament. There are ten spines and
eleven rays in the two back-fins; three spines and
seven rays in the fin behind the vent. The lateral
line pierces from fifty to fifty-five scales.

Color, dusky brown or black, adults often blu-
ish, especially in the breeding-season; sides more
or less mottled, with traces of pale longitudinal
streaks along the rows of scales. The back-fins
have several series of elongate, whitish spots form-
ing interrupted lines ; the other fins are dusky, and
all except the breast-fins are much mottled with
pale or bluish spots. The young are greenish or
brownish, with a dark lateral stripe which is some-
times broken up, forming cross-bars. The sea-
bass from deep water in spring is a .brilliantly
colored fish and cannot fail to excite admiration.
The male is especially gorgeous.

233

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Common Names

Schoepf, in 1787, recorded the New York name
as blaekfish. Mitehill (1814) writes of it as sea
basse, black harry, hanna hills, and bluefish. De
Kay (1842) has it as the black sea-bass, black bass,
and blaekfish. Dr. Storer mentions the Massachu-
setts name of black perch. In the Middle States
a name for the fish is black will, and at New Bed-
ford one may hear it called rock-bass. The best-
known names are sea-bass and blaekfish.

Distribution

There are three distinct forms of sea-bass, the
northern, the southern, and a third in the Gulf of
Mexico. The northern form is found from Vine-
yard Sound to Cape Hatteras, occasionally stray-
ing north of Cape Cod to Massachusetts Bay. At
Wood's Hole, Mass., the fish was very common in
1898, when it arrived in May and left the inshore
waters about October 1, having been most abun-
dant from July to September. In 1900 a remark-
able scarcity of this bass was reported at Wood's
Hole, and observers of the United States Fish
Commission stated thai it was rapidly decreasing
in numbers. Hand-line fishing, even on the spawn-
ing-grounds off Hyannis, was very poor, and

S34

A running Fight

THE S E A-B ASS

young fish were less common than usual. Formerly
the young were abundant everywhere in the vicinity
of Wood's Hole, but in 1900 they were limited to a
few localities.

The same variation has been noted in Great
South Bay, where the young are usually found in
summer, but occasionally fail to arrive except in
very small numbers. Off shore at Southampton,
especially around an old sunken wreck about two
miles at sea, adults are caught freely. Good fish-
ing-grounds are reached by steamers from New
York and Philadelphia on the near-by "banks."
Five Fathom Bank, off the coast of New Jersey,
is famous for its sea-bass. In the shallow waters
of Great Egg Harbor Bay hundreds of small-
sized sea-bass can be taken in a day, and it is
sometimes difficult to keep them away from bait
intended for larger fish. The natural range of the
fish has sometimes been extended by the transfer
of live bass in well-smacks to waters north of their
usual limit.

Favorite Haunts

The young sea-bass prefer the channels of
shallow bays and the vicinity of wharves and land-
ings. Large fish frequent the offshore " banks "
where the bottom is rocky. A sunken wreck de-
lights the adults, because it attracts food and fur-
nishes shelter also.

SS5

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

Habits

The young are found in the eel-grass in summer
and fall as well as in channels. The adults like
to hide in rock crevices, reminding one of the tau-
tog in that respect. The species is sluggish, but
voracious. In their seasonal migration the adults
usually arrive at Cape Cod during the first or
second week in May, when the water has reached
a temperature of 48° to 50° F.; but in 1900, in
spite of the cold weather, they appeared at Cutty-
hunk and Menemsha Bight on April 28, — with
one exception the earliest arrival recorded in twenty-
five years.

The sea-bass feeds upon shrimp, crabs, sea-
worms, squid, small fishes, and other animals of
suitable size. This omnivorous appetite makes it
vulnerable to almost any bait.

Spawning takes place at Wood's Hole, Mass.,
in June, and the species breeds throughout its
range during the sunmier months. The egg is one
twenty-sixth of an inch in diameter and is hatched
in five days in water at a temperature of 59° or
60° F. The egg is buoyant in sea water. It has
been hatched artificially, and the supply of fish can
be kept up indefinitely by fish-culture whenever
required.

THE S E A-B ASS

Qualities

The voracity of the species makes it one of the
most persistent biters in the entire range of anglers'
fishes. It is a strong-pulling fish and bores toward
the bottom with vigorous tugs when hooked. The
flesh is white, firm, and very palatable, so that we
reckon this bass among the most valuable of our
food-fishes.

Size and Rate of Grvowth

The young grow very rapidly. At the end of
July they measure three fourths of an inch; by
the end of October they will be from two to
three inches long. Adults reach a length of
eighteen inches, and a weight of six pounds.

Methods of Capture

Large fish in deep water are frequently taken
T\dth hand-lines; but a more sportsmanlike way is
to use a light rod of wood or cane, a fine braided
linen line on a multiplying reel, Nos. 1-0 to 3-0
Sproat or Aberdeen hooks snelled on single gut,
a leader three or four feet long, and a sinker
varying in weight with the strength of the tide*

237

THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine

A landing-net will prove very useful, and the
greatest comfort will be secured by fishing from
an anchored boat.

The baits are clams, shrimp, shedder-crab, sand-
worms, squid, pieces of menhaden, or various small
fishes.

I

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