248 GAME FISH OF NORTH AMERICA. 



and other shell fish, while it renders the strongest kind of hooks 

 necessary for the angler. These should be Chestertown or Vir- 

 ginia hooks bent on a gimp-wire leader with double swivel. A 

 heavy sinker is required, which will rest on the bottom, and the 

 leader should be doubled so that one hook will be above the other 

 and both above the sinker, having free play with the tide, and sen- 

 sitive to the slightest nibble. Use a heavy nine feet rod of bamboo 

 with reel to suit. Fifty yards of Hne will be sufficient except when 

 the tide runs furiously, and then one can hardly have too long a 

 line or too heaxy a sinker. The best tide to fish in is during high 

 and low tides, when the water is slack ; and for one hour after it 

 begins to run. Along the shores of New Jersey they are numerous 

 from May to October. 



PoRGY ; scuppaug ; scup (Vineyard Sound) ; bream (Rhode Island). — Stenoto7nns 

 argyrpps. — Gill. 



A good pan fish ; in season from May to October ; most abund- 

 ant in June. "Weight, three-fourths of a pound to three pounds. 

 Taken near the bottom. They are said to prefer deep clear water 

 with rocky bottom. In angling for porgies use light tackle with 

 cork float and small sinker ; fine line and an eleven feet rod. 

 Clams and shrimp are good bait, as well as squid and crabs. 

 Many fish with drop lines from an anchored boat. 



The first run of porgies takes place about the beginning of 

 May, although we have seen them taken a week earlier ; and con- 

 sists of large breeding fish weighing from two to four pounds, and 

 measuring up to eighteen or more inches in length. The spawn is 

 quite well-developed at that time, though the precise time or place 

 of depositing the eggs is not known. It is probable that this oc- 

 curs early in June, since the schools are said to break up and scat- 

 ter about the middle of that month. It is thought that the spawn- 

 ing takes place in the eel grass which covers the shoal waters of 

 Narraganset Bay and Vineyard Sound. Throughout ihe summer 

 young fish are seen floating around in the eel grass and over the 

 sandy bottoms. Two later runs of fish occur after the first run 

 each about ten days apart, but of smaller fish. 



