12 



THE SMALL-MOUTHED BASS 



the water when it was seized, and eventually I landed my fish. 

 One frog was still on the hook, but there was a second one 

 in its mouth, a third well down its throat, and the fourth I 

 found afterwards, on returning home, in its stomach. The 

 combined weight of the four frogs, which it had attempted 

 to swallow, was nearly six ounces, and the bass itself just 

 weighed one pound. 



Bass seem to experience little or no sensation when 



hooked, and 

 struggle appar- 

 ently, not from 

 pain, but with 

 the sole object 

 of gaining free- 

 d o m. Anglers 

 who have had 

 much experience 

 with this fish 

 know that the 

 same bass will return again and again to the bait after it has 

 been hooked and has escaped; in fact, it is no uncommon 

 thing to take bass with one or two hooks embedded in 

 their mouths, the result of previous struggles. 



Regarding this point, an incident which happened during 

 the summer of 1906 is worthy of record, especially for the 

 benefit of those who take serious objection to the cruelty 

 of catching fish by means of a hook and prefer to take them 

 in a net. Two friends of mine were fishing one afternoon in 

 a small channel in Georgian Bay, between an island and 

 the mainland, where a current ran with some velocity, neces- 

 sitating the anchoring of their boat. 



They were still-fishing with worms, one in the bow, the 

 other in the stem, of the boat. 



After catching several bass, they were sitting idly wait- 

 ing for the fish to come in, when suddenly both felt a strike 



Leopard Frog 



