54 GAME FISH OF FLORIDA. 



times there are two or more spots. The cut in Norris 

 book gives a correct figure of the red-fish, or channel 

 bass. It comes into the rivers with the tide, and is best 

 taken in the channel near the shore at half flood. As 

 in sheepshead fishing, most persons use the hand line, 

 with the bait on the bottom, but I have found better 

 sport with a brass rod and reel to hold sixty or seventy 

 yards of line, using a float to keep my bait within three 

 feet of the bottom. The same hook as for striped bass ; 

 this fish has a tough, but not very bony mouth, and is 

 easily hooked and held. In March and April we get 

 them in the rivers and inlets of from five to ten pounds 

 weight ; later in the season of larger size, say from fif 

 teen to thirty pounds. My largest was taken by trolling 

 with a hand line from a boat in the Indian river, and 

 weighed twenty-five pounds. I have known a dozen to be 

 taken by one rod in the spring, averaging eight pounds, 

 but in summer a wagon load could be hauled out of the 

 surf with a hand line almost anywhere along the coast 

 from Mosquito Inlet to the Indian river. 



SALT-WATER TROUT (Otolitus Carolinensis). Cu- 

 VIER. This belongs to the same genus as the weak-fish, 

 or squeteague of the Middle States (0. regalix), differing 

 chiefly in this, that the southern species has rows of 

 black spots on the back, like the lake trout of the 

 Adirondacks, which it much resembles in figure. It is, 

 however, not a salmon, but rather allied to the perches 

 of the order Ctenoid, of Agassiz. Our southern species 

 is not much esteemed as food, becoming soft and flavor 

 less soon after capture. It is a game fish, and affords 

 good sport to the rod fisher ; a very handsome and 

 lively fish, from two to ten pounds in weight, and is 

 taken usually with mullet bait. It is of very rapacious 



