DAYS WITH BASS IN EAST 

 AND WEST 



By F. G, AFLALO 



For a very worthy fish on which to do some srnall deed of 

 valour, give me the bass, not the black bass of American lakes, 

 though he also has given me pleasant thrills, but the silvery 

 fellow of our seas and all that reach eastward to the troubled 

 waters of the Bosphorus. This marine perch combines in 

 his elegant person most of the qualities we fishermen esteem. 

 He is beautiful to the eye, cunning in his old age, even though 

 somewhat careless in youth, a desperate fighter on the hook, 

 and a dish not to be despised on the dinner- table. In this last 

 aspect the fish is woefully neglected in this country, for which 

 reason there never has been a regular fishery for bass, and only 

 the smaller school fish out of the seines are commonly seen in 

 the shops of seaside fishmongers. Gilson and other aristocrats 

 of the trade know them not. In Turkey, however, the levraky 

 which is none other than our old friend under his Turkish 

 name, is highly esteemed, and may be encountered, either 

 plain boiled or in the disguise of cold mayonnaisey on all the 

 best tables, fetching in the open market a retail price approxi- 

 mating that of salmon at home at the height of the season. 

 More than one bass of fifteen pounds, and over, I caught, as 



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