The Black Bass 



them being that one has a larger mouth 

 and larger scales than the other. When 

 subject to the same conditions and environ- 

 ment, they are equal in game qualities. 

 The habits of the two species are similar, 

 though the large-mouth bass is more at 

 home in ponds and weedy waters than the 

 small-mouth bass, which prefers running 

 streams and clear lakes. Their natural 

 food is crawfish, for which their wide 

 mouths and brush-like teeth are well 

 adapted, though they do not object to an 

 occasional minnow or small frog. 



Owing to the wide distribution of black NOW and Then 

 bass, fishing for it is universal. It is no 

 less enjoyed by the rustic youth with peeled 

 sapling rod and crawfish bait than by the 

 artistic angler with slender wand and fairy- 

 like flies. While black-bass fishing was 

 known and practiced in the Ohio Valley 

 from the earliest years of the nineteenth 

 century, as just stated, our angling books 

 for three-fourths of the century contained 

 but little, if anything, about the black bass, 

 as they were mostly compilations from 

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