322 AMERICAN FISHES. 



DEEP SEA FISHING. 



The Cod, the Haddock, the Whiting, the Hake, the Halibut, and 

 the Flounder, may be caught every where north of Massachusetts ; and 

 from Boston to the eastward, parties of pleasure are made constantly 

 to take them. On the Great Banks they are most abundant, but in 

 Boston Bay great sport is not uncommon, nor is it unusual for a single 

 boat to bring in its fifteen or twenty quintals of these fine fish. 



The whole sport consists in the frequency of the biting, and the 

 size of the fish, which, for the most part, varies from ten to fifteen 

 pounds ; for though they are sharp and voracious biters, they require 

 no play when hooked, ofi'ering only an inert resistance, and a dead 

 heavy pull. 



Fifty yards of stout hempen line, two small-sized Cod-hooks, baited 

 with the mud-clam, the menhaden, or where it can be procured, the 

 capf^lin, and a pound sinker, is all your apparatus. 



With this, in any eastern water, you may rest assured of returning 

 home with a boat-load of fish, a set of very weary limbs, a pair of very 

 sore hands, and an enormous appetite, of which, me judice, the first and 

 the last alone are desirable. 



If you be content with these, fair or gentle reader, go out for deep- 

 sea fishing when and where you will, provided you ask me to follow 

 you no farther ; for here, once more we must part. Ere long, if the 

 fates — and the booksellers — be propitious, I trust, to meet again, with 

 undiminished satisfaction, each of us with the other. 



And so fare ye well, who have accompanied me so far on my ram- 

 bling way ; may all your pleasures, as you would have them, be both 

 long and lasting ; and all your pains, as ye 7)mst, have them, being 

 mortal men, brief and transitory ; and so may fair fortunes be about 

 ye, and kind thoughts toward Frank Forrester. 



