142 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



six iisk, caught with mole crickets and small 

 crawfish. The goggle-eyes seemed especially 

 fond of the former, so that when I reached the 

 main hole I had but three of the crickets left. 

 Baiting a set line with a crawfish I tried the 

 crickets with the pole in hand. Two of the 

 baits were quickly taken but the third yielded 

 a fine goggle-eye. While rebaiting the hook 

 with a worm I heard something strike the water. 

 Dropping my pole I grabbed the short one at- 

 tached to the set line and landed a two-pound 

 small-mouthed bass. It was the only bass of 

 any kind I had caught this season and I was 

 therefore much elated at my luck. When first 

 hooked it had leaped clear of the water and in 

 falling back had attracted my attention. 



The goggle-eye, 51 also known as the "black 

 perch," "red eye" and "rock bass," is, next 

 to the small-mouthed black bass, the largest and 

 best of the spiny-rayed fishes inhabiting this 

 stream. Beaching a weight of a pound and a 

 half, though most of those caught here do not 

 exceed one-half pound, it is, par excellence, a 

 boy's fish, biting voraciously at many kinds of 

 bait. Within the past ten days I have caught 

 them with angleworms, grasshoppers, hellgram- 

 mites, crawfish, grubworms, mole crickets, ordi- 

 nary crickets, live minnows and parts of dead 

 ones. In life they are olive green in color, with 



81 Ambloplites rupestris Raf. 



