152 POINT JUDITH. 



and West Island, and further northward, differs 

 from that in the vicinity of New York. Great suc- 

 cess, however, depends upon several contingencies. 

 It is supposed that the Gulf Stream, that prolonged 

 current of the Mississippi River, which sweeps with 

 its warmer temperature through mid ocean carrying 

 a genial atmosphere and fertilizing showers to the 

 otherwise arid shores of France and England, 

 changes its course yearly, approaching our coast and 

 sending its swarms of living creatures among the 

 rocks of Narragansett Bay, or withdrawing so as to 

 leave us desolate and to increase the severity of our 

 winters. We all know that our cold seasons differ 

 greatly in intensity, and bass fishermen know that 

 success in fishing varies equally; but from what 

 cause these results flow, no one can positively say. 



After a heavy storm has darkened the water by 

 washing impurities from the shore, and at spots 

 where the dashing breakers fill the sea with foam, 

 the bass bite most fearlessly. Every crested wave 

 rising against the horizon ere it breaks, flashes with 

 their sparkling scales, and so sure as the bait cast 

 from the powerful two-handed rod reaches that 

 wave, so sure is it to be grasped by the nearest bass. 

 The breakers drive the spearing and other small fry 

 from their hiding-places among the rocks ; the dis- 

 colored water blinds them to their danger, and bass 

 trusting themselves in the very curl of the heaving 

 swell collect in myriads to the welcome banquet. 

 But as the discoloration misleads the spearing so it 

 also conceals from the bass the line attached to 



