STRIPED BASS. 205 
beat them together and store it an earthen jar covered 
with a bladder. Frank Forrester recommends that the 
roe be well washed and thoroughly dried in the air, 
salted with two ounces of rock salt and a quarter of an 
ounce of saltpeter to a pound of spawn, dried gently and 
potted down, covered with melted lard or suet in earthen 
jars. This, either fresh or potted, is a most effective 
bait for striped bass, but I confess for trout my experi- 
ence is to the contrary. 
In streams that the shad do not frequent, striped 
bass are taken early in the season with shrimp threaded 
on longitudinally, by passing the j^oint of the hook 
under the back plates ; as the season advances, and 
crabs shed their coats, with the shedder, or better, 
soft crabs ; and in the Fall with shrimp, the bass, or 
barred killey, and the spearing. In fishing with shrimp 
— and it is a good bait all the season through, and must be 
tried when others fail — use a float fastened about three 
feet above a swivel sinker, to the lower swivel of which 
are to be attached two distinct gut leaders, one of three 
feet, the other of two. Single gut, if large, round, and 
true, is decidedly preferable to double, and the hook 
should never be a coarse, clumsy Limerick, which has 
such an undeserved reputation, but a delicate Carlisle, 
with a broad, round bend. If very large fish are ex- 
pected — and they rarely are — use 'No. ; but gener- 
ally No. 3 is large enough. With crab the hook must 
be larger. I prefer always to have the point of the hook 
covered, and recommend that the shrimp should be 
bunched on till they hide the hook entirely, and form a 
round, attractive bait, composed of so many shrimp as 
no bass ever before saw together. 
