Striped Bass. 



469 



The comfortable little club-house is built facing and adjacent to 

 the water, and after supper, as we sit chatting over a cigar on the 

 piazza, we look out upon the wildest water we have as yet seen. The 

 shore is exposed to the direct action of the ocean, without any inter- 

 vening land to break the force of the sea, and the white breakers fol- 



AI-ONG SHORE. 



low each other in rapid succession, lashing themselves against the 

 rocks into a foamy suds, which looks as though it might be the 

 chosen home of large bass — as, indeed, they say it is. 



The following day is almost a repetition of the first — a long, 

 profitless morning spent in fruitless casting, a sudden strike when we 

 least expect it, and then the catching of three fish within an hour and 

 a half. This capricious habit of the bass is very striking at times. 

 Sometimes, day after day, they will bite at a certain hour, without 

 reference to the height of the tide, and at no other time. Whether it 

 is that they have set times to visit different localities, and only arrive 

 at the fishing-ground at the appointed hour, or, whether they are 

 there all the time and only come to their appetites as the sun indi- 

 cates lunch-time, we cannot say. 



< )ur trip is over, and we pack our things to return home. Stored 

 in a box, can fully packed with broken ice, are five bass, — we take 

 no account of two blue-fish of eight and ten pounds, — which weigh 

 respectively twenty-five, fifteen, twenty-eight, twenty-one, ten pounds. 



30A 



