45 2 Striped Bass. 



Arrived at our destination, — a large granite bowlder, known as 

 Bass Rock, which stands out some distance from the shore and is 

 connected with it by a narrow planking supported on iron rods, — we 

 occupy the seat at the end of the jetty while our chummer, standing 

 behind us, baits the hook with a lobster-tail, and we cast out toward 

 two or three rocks where the waters are swirling with the incoming 

 and receding waves. 



The chummer is an important man in his way. He is generally 

 a native of the island, and has done much fishing in his life-time and 

 seen much more. His office is no sinecure ; besides keeping four or 

 five baits peeled ready for use, he breaks up the bodies and claws of 

 the lobsters, and chops the head and shoulders of the menhaden into 

 small bits, and throws them out upon the water with an odd-looking 

 wood-and-tin ladle called a " chum-spoon." Without the chum you 

 might catch an occasional straggler, but there is nothing to attract 

 the attention of the fish, and it is only by accident, as it were, that 

 they happen upon the solitary bait with which you are fishing. 



But stop ! that fellow takes hold as though he meant it, and is 

 laying his course straight for Newport; we must try and stop him 

 short of that. The line whizzes out from the reel, and our thumb 

 would be blistered in a moment were it not for the double worsted 

 thumb-stall which protects it. Perry says he's a twenty-pounder, at 

 least, and he feels like it, for the rod is bent to the curve so beautiful 

 in the eyes of an angler, and the line is strained to the utmost ten- 

 sion. There ! he stops and breaks on the surface. How broad his 

 tail looks as he lashes the water in impotent wrath ! The worst of 

 his run is over ; reel him in carefully, keeping the killing strain on 

 him all the time. He will make two or three more short dashes, and 

 then you may lead him as gentle as a kitten to where Perry stands, 

 with his gaff- hook, ready to reacfi down and take him in out of the 

 wet. It is a pity to strike the cruel steel into his silvery sides, but it 

 would be dangerous to attempt to land him among the rocks in-shore. 



It is true that chumming attracts other less desirable fish. Your 

 blue-fish has an insatiable appetite and a keen nose for a free lunch. 

 We say this ruefully, as we reel in and put on a fresh hook to replace 

 the one just carried away. Egad ! that fellow struck like a forty- 

 pound bass, and cut the line as clean as though he had carried a pair 

 of scissors ! What a game fish he is ! He fights to the very last, 



