240 Fish Stories 



this sunfish gives place to others, but all have the same lively 

 temper, the same care for the young, and the same disposi- 

 tion to outweigh a fish of ten times his size when taken on 

 the hook. Some of these are called blue-gills, doUardee, 

 red-eye, rock-bass, grass-bass. And with these and of much 

 the same nature, is the crappie — the white perch of the 

 south. This is a fish for a man to take, but it too was a 

 boy's fish first. 



Professor Goode quotes from '' St. Louis," in the 

 *' American Angler," the following account of crappie-fish- 

 ing near St. Louis : 



" Our crappie, the greatest pan-fish of the west, is highly 

 esteemed by us for the table. We have seen a monster 

 crappie this spring, weighing over three pounds, taken at 

 Murdock Club Lake, near St. Louis, on the Illinois side. 

 We consider one of one-and-a-half to two pounds a large 

 one. They are taken about logs and tree-tops, on the water's 

 edge in our rivers aiid sloughs. They are greedy fellows, 

 but as soon as hooked, step right into the boat without a 

 struggle for liberty. 



" A gentleman of this place, a member of one of our old 

 French families, who turned the scale at about three hun- 

 dred pounds, was noted for his success in crappie fishing. 

 He would have his large flat towed to a tree; when, the 

 boat tied to a limb, he would settle himself for the day on a 

 pillow placed in a large split-bottom chair. Hauling his 

 live-box and minnow-pail alongside, he would bait two hooks 

 attached to a strong line, using a weak snell, so that in case 

 the hook should foul, he could break it loose. He used a 

 float and short stout bamboo rod, and, shaking the bushes 

 a little, ' to stir up the fish,' would select an opening and 

 carefully drop on the minnow two feet below the surface, 

 pass the end of the rods through rings in the side of the 

 boat, light his pipe and wait for something to happen. It 

 was not long; and after the fun began, it was the same 

 monotonous lifting out of fish, and dropping them into the 



