268 GAME FISH OF NORTH AMERICA. 



lighter body, arranged as you please. All of these flies must be 

 quite small, as the shad bites rather delicately, so that a large fly 

 is not taken sufficiently far into the mouth, and the hook fails to 

 penetrate the hard bony substance which it meets there. Fish 

 from a boat anchored in a current about fifty or seventy-five feet 

 above a deep eddy ; as the flies float down the stream the current 

 keeps them on top, and after they have reached the eddy the pole 

 should be swayed gently back and forth to keep them in motion. 



The best time to fish for shad is early in the morning, and 

 from five until eight in the evening. As soon as it commences to 

 grow dark they may be taken in still and shallower water by 

 casting, in the same manner as for trout or bass, and may be taken 

 in this manner until long after dark. Only the very lightest trout 

 tackle should be used for shad, as the fish will almost always break 

 loose if the rod be strong enough to allow him any purchase 

 whatever. 



Fly fishing seems, to have been measurably successful only in 

 the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers. Little success with fly has 

 been enjoyed in the Delaware and other rivers of Pennsylvania, 

 where the fish altogether prefer bait, which they take with avidity 

 at times. Mr. John P. Motley, of Warren, New Jersey, has related 

 his experience with bait through an article in the Trenton State 

 Gazette, in v/hich he says : 



" Young shad, from the time they are hatched until they pass 

 down into the bays or ocean, where they remain until old enough 

 to return for spawning, feed on small insects occasionally, when 

 these insects fly near, and almost touch the surface of the water. 

 We often see them leaping above the surface when the weather is 

 favorable, and catching gnats that are within their short reach. 

 But when they get to deep water, where they remain until next 

 season, their food is infusoria — animalcules that constitute the 

 greater part of the slimy growths that cover almost all submerged 

 substances. 



" The shad is not intended to leap from the water, or rush after 

 any bait, when he has attained a size beyond feeding on gnats that 

 are flitting over the shallow margins he has to travel in going down 

 the river to the sea. This much I write to account for my failure 

 altogether with flies. I prepared a bait adapted, as I thought, to 



