82 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



The first dorsal has nine stout spines ; the second one spine 

 and twelve soft rays ; pectorals seventeen rays ; caudal six- 

 teen ; ventrals one spine and five rays ; anal three spines and 

 eleven rays. 



Eockfish are not plentiful in the Gulf of Mexico, but are 

 abundant along the whole coast, from Georgia to the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, and are found in larger numbers from the 

 Chesapeake Bay to Nantucket, than in any other part of their 

 geographical range. They have been known to reach the 

 weight of ninety pounds, and have been taken with rod and 

 line as high as forty or fifty, — though one of six or eight 

 pounds affords the angler sport enough. As far as game 

 qualities are concerned, it is the finest fish the American 

 angler meets with, south of the regions of the Salmon. 



In the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, they leave the salt 

 water as soon as the ice disappears from the rivers, and have 

 been taken in the Schuylkill, at Fairmount dam, as early as 

 the 20th of March, by trolling with a minnow, or roach, or a 

 small pickled eel, kept from the previous season. The first 

 Eock-fishing of the season, on the Potomac, is at the Falls 

 above Georgetown, where great numbers, and large ones, are 

 sometimes killed ; and there is no doubt that they can be 

 taken in this' latitude, as early as April or May, on any 

 river communicating with salt water, where the tide is 

 obstructed by a dam or impassable fall. At Newport and 

 Narragansett Bay, they are caught from June to November, by 

 baiting with a small species of herring called Manhaden. 

 Along the sedgy creeks and inlets, from Cape Henlopen to 

 Sandy Hook, they are taken with soft crabs and shrimps, 

 during the months of August and September. Large Eock- 

 fish are frequently caught in nets, when they are following 

 a school of herrings on the fishing grounds, where they cause 



