STRIPED BASS FISHING. 297 



STRIPED BASS FISHING. 



WITH the sole exception of Salmon fishing, this is the finest of the 

 seaboard varieties of piscatorial sport. The Striped Bass is the bold- 

 est, bravest, strongest, and most active fish that visits the waters of 

 the midland States, and is, as I have before observed, to be surpassed 

 only by the Salmon. 



Everywhere, from the capes of the Chesapeake to the St. Lawrence, 

 they run up the rivers to spawn in the early spring, and shelter them- 

 selves in the shallow lagoons within the outer bars during the winter. 



Everywhere they are fished for eagerly, and esteemed alike a prize 

 by the angler and the epicure. 



In every manner they are fished for with success, and with almost 

 every bait. 



The fly will take them brilliantly, and at the end of three hundred 

 yards of Salmon-line a twelve pound Bass will be found quite sufficient 

 to keep even the most skilful angler's hands as full as he can possibly 

 desire. 



The fly to be used is any of the large Salmon-flies, the larger and 

 gaudier the better. None is more taking than an orange body with 

 peacock and blue-jay wings and black hackle legs ; but any of the 

 well-known Salmon flies will secure him, as will the scarlet-bodied fly 

 with scarlet-ibis and silver-pheasant wings which is so killing to the 

 Black Bass of the lakes. 



With the fly, he is to be fished for with the double-handed rod, pre- 

 cisely as the Salmon ; and when hooked, though he has not all the 

 artifice and resource of that monarch of the deep, he is hardly inferior 

 to him in agility, strength, and vigor of resistance. 



It is singular that more recourse is not had to this mode of taking 

 him, as in waters where the Salmon is not, there is no sport equal to it. 



Those who try this method will not, I dare to assert, regret the 



