THE BASSES: FRES H-W ATER AND MARINE 



the angler frequently thinks that the fish has es- 

 caped, as the line loops in the water and the strain 

 upon it is no longer felt. But, presto ! thirty, forty, 

 or perhaps fifty feet away, his eye catches a gleam 

 of bronze and brass two or three feet above the sur- 

 face of the water, and he notes with delight the 

 aerial flight of that old bronze-backer, vigorous 

 even in the air, with every muscle in action, franti- 

 cally shaking its body and almost doubling it up 

 in the frenzy of restrained liberty. And just here, 

 sad to say, comes in the thrill evolved by the hope 

 that the quarry is within possible reach of capture. 

 The leap of the black bass is always directly up- 

 ward when hooked, and he generally falls tail first 

 into the water. At times, however, this fish, like 

 the trout, will rise vigorously to the fly, and, miss- 

 ing it, will make a graceful curve in the air ere he 

 quietly returns, head down, to his element. But as 

 a rule the bass rises fiercely and with an accurate 

 aim to the fly, and then starts instantly for his lair, 

 which, when feeding, is most frequently at the foot 

 of the rift flowing into a pool, or just on the edge 

 of the rapid in an eddy made by the swift running 

 water. I have never found basjs feeding or loiter- 

 ing in the rapids, and this is not easily accounted 

 for, seeing that in black-bass water the chub, large 

 and small, are always found in swift water. An- 

 other coincident condition is that the chub seem 

 to have realized that they are safer from the rav- 



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