The Black Bass 



climax, as, with pride and regret struggling 

 for mastery, and " suiting the action to the 

 word and the word to the action," he tells 

 again the old, old story of how the biggest 

 of all, a regular " snolligoster," shook out 

 the hook and got away ! 



In the years to come, will that lad exult 

 over the capture of a mighty tuna or giant 

 tarpon with as much genuine joy and 

 enthusiasm as over that string of bass? 

 Well, hardly. And as the boy is father to 

 the man, and as we are all but children of 

 larger growth, the black-bass angler never 

 outlives that love and enthusiasm of his 

 younger days younger only as reckoned 

 by the lapse of years. 



Although the black bass, as a game fish, in Olden Time 

 has come into his own only during the last 

 two or three decades, black-bass fishing 

 is older than the Federal Union. The 

 quaint old naturalist, William Bartram, the 

 " grandfather of American ornithology," 

 in 1764, described, minutely, " bobbing " 

 for black bass in Florida, there, as in all 

 the Southern States, called u trout " a 



9 



