_^_^ REVIEW OF LOCAL FISHES 69 



The baits most in favor for Weakfishing are white worms and 

 shedder crab. Sometimes the white worm bait is topped with a Hve 

 shrimp impaled on the very tip of the hook, and shrimp are frequently 

 used as "chum" to lure the fish about the boat. 



When large Weakfish become very abundant off the ocean beaches, 

 as they frequently do, sailboats cease trolling for Bluefish, lie in the 

 wind, and fish for the "Weaks," with metal Bluefish "squid," in a 

 manner known as "jigging." The "squid" is lowered to near the bot- 

 tom, and at intervals lifted rapidly through a foot or two of water and 

 allowed to drop back again. 



Inshore, school Weakfish do not average over a pound in weight. 

 Offshore, they run larger; five or six pounds being common, and ten 

 pounds not very rare. Thirty pounds has been reached by the species. 



The Banded Croaker is a rare straggler to our shores in summer. It 

 may be recognized by the peculiar form of the mouth which is almost 

 vertical, opening upward instead of forward. The back has several 

 rather conspicuous dark bars which extend to below the middle of the 

 sides. The Silver Perch is a southern species occasionally common here 

 in late summer and fall. It is a small compressed fish with the head 

 rather pointed, slightly concave over the eye, the mouth somewhat 

 oblique, though horizontal rather than vertical. It is silvery in color 

 with yellow fins. 



The Channel Bass is an elongate fish with a strictly horizontal 

 mouth and the lower jaw not extending as far forward at the upper. 

 Its tail fin is evenly truncate with a conspicuous oval black blotch at its 

 base above. Occasionally there are two blotches. Channel Bass reach a 

 length of two to five feet and a weight of seventy-five pounds and furnish 

 excellent sport, being frequently angled for through the surf. The large 

 ones, over 15 pounds, are coarse and not very good eating. They are 

 rare in this immediate vicinity but common further south on the New 

 Jersey coast. The Spot or Lafayette is a small fish with a high, bluntly 

 rounded snout, extending slightly forward of the tip of the lower jaw. 

 It has a distinctly although not deeply forked tail and a conspicuous 

 blackish spot on the shoulder; further back narrow dark lines extend 

 downward and forward from the back. At intervals of several years 

 Lafayettes become excessively abundant about New York and may be 

 caught in numbers from piers along the city's waterfront. A few 



