THE GERMAN CARP IN THE UNITED STATES. 621 



bream, will probably not abandon those fish for the pursuit of the 

 carp, while, on the other hand, those who have done most of their 

 fishing for buffalo, red-horse, mullet, or bull heads should welcome 

 the carp with 303^. How far in this country its capture is supplanting, 

 or at least supplementing, the other of the coarser fishes in this respect 

 has been best told by Dr. S. P. Bartlett (1903), of Illinois. For this 

 reason I quote the greater portion of his paper: 



The question has been asked me a great many times why it was that carp can not 

 be taken with the hook and line. A great many persons have told me that they 

 Save used all kinds of bait and failed to get them to take it. These inquiries came to 

 me as a surprise from the fact that hundreds daily fish for carp with hook and line 

 on Quincy Bay and all along the Illinois River with great success. 



1 have found the be st bait to be a dough ball made by boiling cornmeal to a good stiff 

 mush, and then working the ordinary cotton batting into it until it becomes hard and 

 stiff, and then rolling into little round pellets about the size of a marble. Bait prepared 

 in this way will not be easily dissolved by the water. I use the ordinary Carlisle 

 hook fastened on the end of a good strong line and three or four inches above the 

 hook, attach quite a heavy sinker which will take the line to the bottom and allow 

 the bait to flow up away from the bottom. Another good bait is the ordinary ship 

 stuff from the mills, boiled stiff and dough rolled out in sheets and then cut up into 

 little squares, perhaps three-fourths of'an inch square. Fried potatoes, sliced raw 

 and fried until they become stiff, not brittle, also is a fine bait. Anyone conversant 

 with the hook and line at all, will have no trouble in carp if this bait is used as 

 indicated. 



On Quincy Bay I have seen as many as two hundred people fishing for carp along 

 the shores, and nearly all of them get good fair strings. The carp when hooked is a 

 very vigorous fighter, and care must be used that he does not break the hook or 

 break out the hook from his mouth. I would advise the use of the landing net. 

 They are daily taken on trout lines, using the same kind of bait. 



Since, your request for information as to the carp from an angling standpoint, I 

 have given the matter a great deal of attention, and have been greatly surprised at 

 the extent to which carp are caught with hook and line. From Cairo to Dubuque 

 on the Mississippi River I have found shores at all the towns lined with people 

 ffthing for carp, all catching them. One day last week, from the lower end of 

 Peoria, Illinois river, to water works point, a distance of three miles, I counted 

 1,103 people fishing with hook and line, and on investigation [it] developed that a 

 large per cent of them were taking carp. The majority of those caught weighed 

 a pound and as heavy as five pounds, all of them probably used as food. Permit 

 me to introduce here a letter from one of the best known sportsmen in the State 

 [Mr. M. D. Hurley, of Peoria, 111.]: 



"Carp fishing with hook and line has now taken its place with bass and other 

 kinds of fishing. All along the river in this locality carp are being caught freely 

 with hook and line this year, and to say they are gamey, is not half expressing it. 

 For the past month I have made it my business to go along the river and take notes 

 of this particular kind of fishing and talked with no less than 25 different persons 

 who were busy catching carp, and in every instance I was told it was rare sport to 

 hook a carp, as it was quite as much of a trick to land one as it was to land a bass; 

 dip nets were used generally to land the carp, as the activity of the fish when jerked 

 out-of the water would tear the gills and free the fish quite often. The bait used 

 when fishing for carp is dough balls and partly boiled potatoes, the latter being best 

 in the opinion of the majority. The carp will bite on worms quite freely also, and 

 in two instances,'! found carp had been taken with minnows, something that has 

 been considered impossible heretofore, but in these two cases I am certain it was 



