26 Big Game Fishes 



length ; gut or salmon leader is soon worn off 

 by the fine teeth of this noble Cynoscion. The 

 bait, if a smelt, six inches in length, is impaled 

 through the mouth, the point thrust into the 

 belly of the fish, and the mouth of the latter 

 bound or closed and fastened to the shank of the 

 hook by a silver wire, which should be attached 

 to every hook; it prevents the bait from whirl- 

 ing and the line from untwisting. The leader 

 should bear at least two swivels. Spoons, and 

 all kinds of artificial baits, are useless, at least 

 in my long and continued experience, the fancy 

 of the great bass and the term bass is a local- 

 ism being for very large baits, as the flying-fish 

 or smelt, a prodigious lure for even so large a 

 fish. 



In searching for this game the boatman rows 

 along the rocky shores of the islands in perfectly 

 smooth water, not sixty feet from the high mas- 

 sive cliffs which merge into mountains. Often 

 the strike comes within a few feet of the rocks ; yet 

 the water may be two hundred feet in depth, so 

 precipitous are the shores, blue water being found 

 at the very portals. Again little bays are entered, 

 the mouths of deep canons which wind upward, 

 the great bass being fond of such places ; and in 



