74 FISHING IN AMEEICAN WATEKS. 



for sulking this morning ; sometimes they settle behind rocks, 

 and butt the hook against them to spring it out. 



Mosier. Don't you hold him a leetle too taut ? 



D. I don't know ; but I can not play him easier, for when 

 I give him an inch, he takes a rod ! 



S. He will soon stop for his final fight. See ! he is prepar- 

 ing. Now ease the line a trifle, and trust to the chance of 

 his being well hooked. 



D. He's gone, I know he is ! Just see the fellow throw 

 himself like Pat McAroon in a street-fight. There, he's off! 

 No, he is not ; what's to be done ? 



S. Reel up gently ; he is dead ; that is, he has fought until 

 he has fainted. Gingerly, doctor; reel with the incoming 

 surf, and slacken with the ebb there ! 



Mosier. He is a game one, and will weigh over twenty 

 pounds. They're allays hifalorum in them Kifle Pits ! Gen- 

 tlemen, the breakfast horns has been bio win a good while. 



D. I am wilted. These rocks are rough to run about on 

 and play a fish, when every now and then Neptune drenches 

 one with spray. I had long heard that striped bass were 

 game, but all that I ever heard or read did not prepare me 

 for such encounters as I have seen and realized this morning. 

 I am not now surprised that Americans consider this the head 

 of game fishes. The accessories of fishing for it, the scenes 

 where it is taken, together with the modus operandi of its 

 capture by artistic means, render the sport the most exciting 

 that I know of under the head of angling. I shall certainly 

 prescribe something to steady my nerves. Eh lien! To 

 breakfast is the order ; and as we have taken two grand bass, 

 ne quid nimis, we will even leave oif fishing while they are 

 feeding, which, for the vulgar object of ourselves feeding, is, 

 with a real angler, an unpardonable offense against the aes- 

 thetics of sport. But, though belonging to the refined con- 

 fraternity of anglers, our excuse is that we are rigged with 

 human necessities. 



As the breakfast-table is the morning's trysting-place for 



