Worth. — Angling Grounds for Striped Bass 117 



striped bass were fished for. Now that the Inland Water- 

 way has been opened up from Beaufort or Old Topsail Inlet 

 to the Neuse River, it is learned that the sea water is denser 

 and advances yet higher up the Neuse River. 



Roanoke River.— In the years 1879, 1883, 1884, and 

 1903 to 1909 inclusive, at Weldon, situated at the foot of the 

 great rapids of Roanoke River — the most notable striped 

 bass stream in North Carolina — I found scarcely an excep- 

 tion to the accepted belief that the striped bass would not 

 bite a hook in that vicinity. The reason may be that this is 

 a spawning ground, probably the foremost known spawning 

 ground of the species. In the summer of 1904, however, I 

 learned that fish were being caught on trot lines at a point 

 some miles below and in surprising quantity. On June 7 of 

 that year, my son, Henry B. Worth, in charge of a power 

 boat which I was sending down the river to go into repairs 

 at the Elizabeth City marine railway, stopped in some- 

 where about the Hobgood Post Office landing to take on 

 water, this landing being not far from the Atlantic Coast 

 Line Railroad crossing on the Rocky Mount and Norfolk 

 branch. There he met a Air. J. D. Savage who was then 

 fishing with trot lines and by whom he was informed that 

 at a point 1 y 2 miles above Hamilton two men in ordinary 

 seasons would take about 200 pounds a day or approximately 

 1,000 pounds a week, employing fresh herring (alewife) 

 bait. The last named town is perhaps 25 miles below Hob- 

 good. Evidently the use of the hook was not entirely new 

 in that region. It is also evident that a large angling re- 

 source awaits up-to-date single hook methods, the latter ap- 

 parently not yet known there. 



In 1905 a report reached me at Weldon through law- 

 yers or others recently attending court down about the town 

 of Scotland Neck that some hundreds of pounds of striped 

 bass were being caught daily at some point near the last 

 named town on trot lines, and closely following that report 

 was another to the effect that similar captures were being 

 made at the old, historic town of Halifax, situated but 8 



