Striped Bass. 



467 



FROM THE DEPTHS (BASKET FISH — ASTROPHYTON). 



fro. The surf has risen with the tide, the water is somewhat turbid 

 and filled with small floating particles of kelp or sea-salad, which 

 attach themselves to the line and cause it to look, when straightened 

 out, like a miniature clothes-line. Occasionally, a wave will dash up 

 against the shelving rock on which we stand, and, breaking into fine 

 spray, sprinkle us liberally, and as salt water dries but slowly, we are 

 gradually, but none the less surely, drenched to the skin. 



Suddenly, without the slightest indication of the presence of 

 game-fish, our line straightens out, we strike quick and hard to 

 fix the hook well in, the reel revolves with fearful rapidity and the 

 taut line cuts through the waves like a knife, as a large bass clashes 

 away in his first mad run, fear and rage lending him a strength 

 apparently much beyond his weight. Of course, under the circum- 

 stance. th<- strain on the fish is graduated, but the weight of line 

 alone which he has to draw through the water would be enough to 

 exhaust even a fifty-pounder, and he soon tires sufficiently to enable 

 us to turn his head toward land. As we pilot him nearer to the 



