BLACK-BASS-FISHING IN 

 SUNGAHNEETUK 



AMONG the Vermont rivers emptying into Lake 

 Champlain that were once salmon streams, is the 

 beautiful little river which the Indians named 

 "Sungahneetuk," the "Fishing-Place River." 

 The salmon long since ceased to inhabit any of 

 these, only now and then a straggler being taken 

 even in the lake. Our Fish Commissioners have 

 tried to reestablish the salmon in the rivers he 

 once made famous; but, barred with dams, their 

 unshaded waters heated and shrunken, thick with 

 sawdust and the wash of cultivated lands, and 

 poisoned with chemicals from mills and factories, 

 they have undergone changes too great to allow 

 them again to become his home. They are rivers 

 yet, but not the cool and limpid realms whereof he 

 was lord paramount in the old days, and it is no 

 longer worth his while to battle the swift currents 

 of the Saint Lawrence and run the gantlet of the 

 Richelieu nets to come to his own again. 



In Sungahneetuk and in other streams, his 

 ancient heritage, he has a smaller yet worthy 

 successor, almost as game for his size, and ranking 

 high among food-fishes. Hardy, prolific, armed 

 defensively with firm scales and a dorsal bristling 



