GENERAL AND SPECIAL FEATURES. 35 



and fights with at least equal determination after taking. In 

 using the trolling spoon in clear water, I have frequently ob- 

 served that the small-mouth will follow the lure for a while, and 

 abandon the pursuit without an attempt to capture. This I have 

 never known the big-mouth to do. He starts for it, goes straight 

 to it, takes it, and fights it out on that line. There is nothing 

 indirect about him until he is hooked. Then he will cut the 

 line on rocks, wind it about snags, tangle it among weeds, and 

 do very many highly reprehensible things. In this regard he is 

 no worse, however, if he be so bad, as his sly neighbor the small- 

 mouth." 



" Cyrtonyx," of Fort Stanton, New Mexico, is a very close 

 and reliable observer, and a good angler and fly-fisher ; out 

 of the abundance of his heart his mouth speaketh : 



"I have caught the large-mouth Black Bass from the southern 

 part of Louisiana, through most of the Gulf States, and north- 

 ward, and I have always found that they not only rise splendidly 

 to the fly, but that I have caught as big ones as by bait-fishing. 

 On the other hand, the small-mouth does not take the fly freely 

 (remember I am speaking of legitimate fly-fishing, not trolling 

 with flies), and it is but the small ones that take it at all, as a 

 rule. The big-sized small-mouths are seldom caught that way. 

 Four years ago I saw a number of complaints about the Black 

 Bass not being a reliable fish for the fly, etc. , but nearly all these 

 articles were from Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio, and re- 

 ferred to the small-mouth. If the writers had tried the large- 

 mouth, they would probably have changed their opinions. I 

 have caught the large-mouth Blaok Bass in running waters, in 

 ponds, and in lakes. Swift running water is the best for fly-fish- 

 ing. The statement that they invariably like mud and weeds, 

 and go nowhere else, is simply not true. 



" I have caught the large-mouth in the Amite, in East Baton 

 Rouge Parish, La., as clear and pure a river as any trout stream 



