360 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 





near the line which separates Canada from the United 

 States, also the tributaries of the Ohio and Mississippi riv- 

 ers. I am informed that they are also most abundant in 

 the Potomac, into which river they were introduced twenty 

 years ago by a keen fisherman who possessed property on 

 its margin. The artificial fly, spoon-bait, or trolling with 

 minnow, will all be found successful in their capture. From 

 their great activity, strength, and vitality, very strong tackle 

 must be used in fishing for them, such, in fact, as gener 

 ally is employed for sea-trout. It is very much to be re- 

 gretted that the efforts made of late years to introduce 

 black bass into English waters by myself first, and Mr. 

 Parnaby, of Borrowdale, afterward, have been a failure, for 

 they are unquestionably as fine a fish for angling purposes 

 as any we possess, and as an article of food are equal to 

 our best. 



On the Wabash I have had some magnificent black bass 

 fishing. About one mile and a half above the town of Vin- 

 cennes, in Indiana, a small rivulet enters it. When floods 

 occur in the parent stream the backwater in the tributary 

 invariably swarms with black bass, pike, and cat-fish, as 

 long as the water is on the increase ; and so ravenous will 

 these different species become, that, as quick as you can 

 supply your hook with bait, so rapidly will the fisherman 

 catch them; but the instant the volume of water com- 

 mences to abate all will cease to feed, and the disciple of 

 Izaak Walton goes unrewarded. All the tributary streams 

 of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi are well stocked with 

 black bass ; but there are few places where I have enjoyed 

 better sport than at Mount Carmel, on the Wabash, where 

 they abounded in such quantities as to astonish those who 

 had never previously visited this pretty, retired village. I 

 believe I was the first to use the fly for the capture of black 

 bass upon these waters, but so successful was I, that in a 



