I40 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



an onion and dried his multifold breeches; on yonder island 

 Black Sam, the negro fisherman, watched Captain Kidd and 

 his men as they buried their ill-gotten treasures by the dim 

 light of the ship's lantern. The place is still called Nigger 

 Point, and is notable for the fine Bass caught there. I have 

 heard of no one who has been made suddenly wealthy by 

 the discovery of Kidd's treasure, but many places in sight 

 can be pointed out where the rise in value of land has been 

 so sudden as to verify the legend of Wolfert Webber and his 

 cabbage plot. For instance, below us, its dark outlines 

 broken by many a spire and ambitious factory chimney, lies 

 the great city whose site was the subject of the famous bar- 

 gain driven with the Indians by Oloffe the Dreamer. 



In the eddies forming about the reefs by these turbulent 

 waters, fine fishing can be had, occasionally, for Bass weighing 

 from two to fifty pounds, though many stories are told of 

 monsters of much larger growth having been caught or 

 which have disappointed the angler by breaking loose just 

 at the moment when they were about to be gaffed. It is 

 well not to place too much reliance on these fishermen's 

 yarns, for many of them doubtless have their origin in the 

 atmosphere of romance which appears to pervade this neigh- 

 borhood, or in that habit— shall we call it exaggeration.^ — 

 which seems to be an amiable weakness of the gentle craft. 

 Still the fact remains that more large fish are caught in this 

 locality than at any other place within fifty miles of the'city. 



Hell Gate is particularly worthy of note, as it is undoubt- 

 edly the school from which all of our large Bass anglers have 

 graduated — not intending, however, to say that all who at 

 present fish for large Bass are Hell Gate fishermen, for there are 

 now many excellent anglers from all parts of the Union, mem- 

 bers of the great fishing clubs, who have no further knowl- 

 edge of its intricacies than that obtained from the deck of 

 a Sound steamer; but that the art of fishing for heavy fish 

 with light tackle was first practiced in these waters, and that 



