136 BASS FISHING. 



The accuracy with which, in an inlet so wide 

 and deep (and with no other guides than trees and 

 landmarks, distant from four to eight miles), the 

 drop is taken, is matter of frequent surprise. For 

 example, my rope parted in a hard blow, and my 

 anchor remained at the bottom. I fished it up five 

 years afterward, drawing up the old anchor on the 

 fluke of the new and identified it by the covering 

 of sheet lead which I had wrapped round the shank 

 to increase its weight. Still more remarkable is the 

 fact I am about to record. It is one of those cases, 

 sometimes occurring, in which fact seems stranger 

 than fiction ! 



I was fishing in October, 1841, on Bay Point 

 rocks, for bass. Nathl. Hey ward, Jun., and my 

 young son, nine years of age, were in the boat with 

 me. My son sat on my left, and fastened his line 

 to a rock, as he thought, below. " But see," said 

 he, " I can draw it up some feet from bottom." I 

 felt it, and it swayed a few feet, but w^ould come 

 no further; and I concluded he had struck his hook 

 into a fragment of rope attached to some lost 

 anchor. Nothing remained but to pull upon it; 

 when the line came up, minus the hook, which 

 remained, with the strap attached, fixed in the 

 object below. We drew up anchor ', and returned 

 to the shore on the ebb tide to dinner^ but having 



