30 THE BLACK BASS. 



in May, in the rivers, they will bite angle-worms. 

 The bait, in all cases, should be kept in motion, as 

 in that way it attracts the attention of the bass, and 

 he darts at it very suddenly. 



Trolling for black bass is excellent sport, and six 

 pounders are sometimes caught in this way. You 

 may use the spoon with good success, or a few white 

 feathers with scarlet cloth fixecl up to imitate a gray 

 insect will answer. In Lake George, trolling is the 

 favorite sport, and the bass caught are usually from 

 one to four and a half pounds weight. 



In Niagara river, near its confluence with Lako 

 Erie, both black bass and perch are taken in the 

 summer season in untold thousands with the hook 

 and line, both by professional fisherman and ama- 

 teurs. Trolling .is the favorite scientific way of 

 catching them. You take a light, clinker-built boat 

 of some twelve or fifeen feet long, at Buffalo or 

 Black Hiver, enter the river a mile below, go down 

 the current three miles to opposite the head of Grand 

 Island, then bait and throw out your hooks, slowly 

 drift down the river near the island shore, and by 

 the time you reach Falconwood, if it is a good day 

 and you are an expert angler, you draw up half a 

 dozen to twenty beautiful bottle-green victims, giving 

 you all the play to land them securely in your boat 

 that the most ardent Waltonian would desire. They 

 are from two to four pounds in weight, fat as a clam, 

 and delicioiis as the shad or the tautog. This is the 

 very poetry of bass-fishing. 



