48 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATEES. 



winters since, so full of striped bass that the fish were dis- 

 covered by their dorsal fins in the ice, where they had been 

 frozen by too close packing. The ice was cut, and hundreds 

 of cart-loads were pitched out with forks and taken to 

 market. 



Striped bass will live and increase when confined to fresh 

 water, but its shape then becomes changed, and instead of its 

 symmetry and lustre when having access to both fresh and 

 salt waters, it becomes more chubbed, and its colors less scin- 

 tillant. This I discovered in those I took in the upper part 

 of Lake Ontario, and it corroborates the opinion which I have 

 heard expressed by other anglers and fish-culturists. 



These fish delight in rocky shoals, among which they flap 

 their tails and rub their scales as they prospect for Crustacea, 

 of which shedder and soft-shell crabs they consider great del- 

 icacies. Their great power and swiftness enable them to for- 

 age with impunity for disabled menhaden, spearing, shrimp, 

 crabs, shedder lobsters, etc., among the breakers, as they lash 

 and lave the rocky shores of our coast ; and it is at such 

 times, when the sea is agitated, that casting for them from 

 the rocks with rod, and reel, and menhaden bait, that the 

 sport is rendered more pleasingly exciting and attractive 

 than angling for any other game fish. 



The angler pursues many methods for capturing this beau- 

 ty of the estuary, the chief of which are still-baiting from an 

 anchored boat along the edge of the tide, trolling with live 

 squid (small cuttle-fish), and casting with menhaden bait but 

 without sinker into the surf of a rocky beach, along the 

 shores and islands from New York to Martha's Vineyard. 



SECTION SECOND. 



ANGLING FOR STRIPED BASS. 



In order that the reader may proximately realize the char- 

 acter of the striped bass as a game fish, I propose taking him 

 with me on several excursions after the lustrous beauty. 

 And, first, we will try him in the vicinity of New York. The 



