SEA FISHING 

 the most coveted fish in our rivers. The bass, then, is a sea perch, of a 

 green, or blue-green, colour, with silvery scales. Small bass are of brighter 

 hue, and lack the brown shades of older specimens. The head is broad, 

 not unlike that of a large chub, and there are nine spines in the conspicuous 

 back fin. These spines should be very respectfully avoided by anyone 

 handling the fish when alive. The river perch, by the way, has twelve 

 or fourteen spines in the corresponding fin, a matter of interest to the 

 student rather than to the fisherman. Sharp spines in front of the other 

 fins, as well as behind the gill-covers, make the bass a risky fish to touch 

 without injury to the fingers. Young bass are, at an early stage of their 

 existence, spotted all over, but in later life the only spot remaining is that 

 on the gill-covers. 



The greatest weight to which the bass grows is a question of some 

 interest, but it is not easy to determine, if only because there is no very 

 regular commercial fishery for it. Bass are rarely seen in fishmongers' 

 shops in inland cities, and those offered for sale in seaside towns are mostly 

 taken accidentally in the seine nets, the heavy fish occasionally getting 

 trapped in the salmon seines, and the small shoal bass in shore seines 

 used for launce or other kinds. Probably about twenty-four pounds would 

 be approximately the greatest weight of bass on the English coast. Big 

 bass are not so common as they were twenty years ago, probably owing 

 to the great increase in the vogue of sea fishing for sport. The fish of eleven 

 and a quarter pounds, which I caught in the Teign in 1902, has only 

 once, to my knowledge, been beaten in that river, even in the salmon nets, 

 and one of twenty -two and a half pounds, netted the same summer in the 

 mouth of the Tamar, is the heaviest of which there is any recent record. 

 In Turkish waters, on the other hand, the bass average a much greater 

 weight than with us. Fish of ten and twelve pounds are quite common in 

 the Sea of Marmora and its inlets, and I caught three of seventeen, which 

 would be an extraordinary catch on the rod anywhere on our coasts. 



That the bass is, within certain limits, a regular wanderer is beyond all 

 doubt, though, owing to its lack of commercial importance, it has not 

 been studied as closely as the herring or mackerel. So far as my own 

 limited observations in the River Teign go, the smiaU shoal bass, 

 measuring from six to nine inches, put in an appearance some time during 

 the month of April, the exact time depending on conditions of weather 

 and temperature. They come in with each tide, ascending as far as mud- 

 flats, four or five miles above the bar, and returning to sea on the ebb. 



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