CHAPTER XXV 



A DESERT FISHING POOL 



IF one desires freak fishing, which, doubtless, 

 would be unsatisfactory to almost any one, 

 and is only interesting to write about, it can 

 be had in the Salton Sea, which has pushed the 

 railroad of the Californian desert farther north 

 and is now slowly receding. 



The Salton Sea is no new thing. The present 

 one, which came in 1905, and is now, in 1909, 

 still a good sized sea, is the second one I recall 

 in twenty years, being the result of the diver- 

 sion of the Colorado from its true course to the 

 gulf. With it went the black bass, the salmon 

 (not real salmon), and the pestiferous German 

 carp. The latter have learned, so it is said, to 

 recognize the roar and rumble of the daily Over- 

 land and throng the water near it to feed upon 

 the debris tossed over by travellers; not an in- 

 viting lure, rather suggesting scavengers, and 

 I always associate the carp with the big impos- 

 sible sucker of Klamath. 



But there are good bass in Salton Sea, and 

 before the big water totally fails and dries up 



382 



