124 AMERICAN GAME. 



you're about for he is a deuce of a run-away, is your 

 ten-pound Bass, when the barbed hook is in his jaws. 



He has not so much resource as the Salmon, does not 

 often throw himself off the surface water, or strive to fall 

 on the tightened line and break it ; neither have I seen 

 him run in often, if ever, upon the angler, or sulk at the 

 bottom. But I think his first rush, if anything, is stronger, 

 and I am sure it is longer, than that of an equal salmon. 

 He will fight hard, for his time ; but his time, providing 

 you keep a taught hand on him, make him work for 

 every inch of line, and mind not to let him smash you, 

 either against rocks on the 'bottom, or against piles or 

 stumps, the neighborhood of which he loves, and around 

 which he is sure to twist you if you let him, will not 

 be so long by twenty minutes, as a ten-pounder Salmon 

 on a fly, well played, with good tackle without it you 

 have not a chance and twelve minutes should have him 

 dead-beat, and half-drowned, with the gaff in his glitter- 

 ing sides. 



Fly-fishing is not certain for Bass ; when they are in 

 the humor to take, however, they give fine sport ; and in 

 a fine spring morning, with a dark ruffle on the water, it 

 is worth the while trying. A salmon rod will be re- 

 quired for this sport, with a reel, of course ; a single-gut 

 bottom, and any large, gaudy lake-fly ; but none is, I 

 think, so killing as that made by the Conroys, especially 

 for the Black Bass of the lakes, Gristes Nigricans, an 

 entirely different fish, peculiar to the St. Lawrence 



