THE BASSES: FRES H-W ATER AND MARINE 



waters of our large rivers there are many mud or 

 grassy flats with only a few inches of water on them, 

 sufficient, however, to float a small flat-bottomed 

 boat. It is not an infrequent occurrence, when one 

 of the latter is rowed at night over these bottoms, 

 to have the black bass, thus disturbed in feeding on 

 such fruitful and favorite ground, to jump, in 

 their fright, into the boat. In fact it is of official 

 record that on three consecutive nights one person 

 captured by this unique method 42, 132, and 63 

 fine bass, some as large as two and a half pounds 

 in weight. The most sensitive humanitarian could 

 not object to this method of fishing, where there 

 is no live bait to impale, or hook to extract from 

 the mouth of a captured quarry. 



A Tricky Method 



A friend of ours has a tricky way of luring 

 black bass when "off their feed." He hooks a 

 worm in the centre, so that when he puts on a min- 

 now the ends of the worm hang on either side of 

 the head of the fish. His theory is that the bass 

 reasons thus: "That fellow is going off with a 

 prize; if he was not in good health he would 

 scarcely have such a good appetite; therefore it 

 is evident that no fisherman has played tricks with 

 that lusty fellow," and so Old Fin goes fiercely 

 after the young cyprinoid and our friend's basket 

 is made heavier by another fish. 



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