THE BASSES: FRES H-W ATER AND MARINE 



Temperature of Bass-Waters 



There is an impression existing among many 

 who are interested in the life-history of the small- 

 mouthed black bass, that they thrive only in clear, 

 rocky, cool streams. Their lusty life and rapid 

 increase in such rivers as the Delaware, Susque- 

 hanna, and Potomac would seem to negative such 

 a statement. True, the black bass, like the trout, 

 is ever on the move up the fluvial waters : the latter, 

 from the imperative instinct of reproduction; the 

 black bass, I am led to believe, simply from the need 

 of new feeding-grounds, for they can be found, 

 during the spawning-season, on their beds, in a 

 stretch of more than a hundred miles on the Dela- 

 ware River in the month of June. Moreover, 

 and again as to their thriving only in cool water, 

 I have frequently stepped into the shallows along 

 the banks of that river, when the water produced 

 a sensation of heat to my feet and ankles, and 

 yet, then and there, a fly-cast made fifty feet 

 away creeled a bass from water hardly more than 

 two feet in depth. In the shallows the degree 

 of heat was certainly 85 to 90 F., and where 

 the fish was hooked it was surely not less than 80. 

 This experience, many times repeated, was con- 

 firmed at East Branch, Delaware County, N. Y., 

 at least 200 miles above tide-water as the river 



8 



