STORIES OF LARGE BASS 



It matters not where you go along the Potomac 

 River and its tributaries you will meet some one 

 who has captured "the largest bass that was ever 

 seen." Those who come home with fish will often 

 tell you how the biggest one got away. Some times 

 their stories are true, not as many of them perhaps 

 as are those told by the class I first mentioned. Old 

 settlers who have lived and boated along the river 

 delight in rehearsing early experiences, and while 

 some of them repeat their tales so often that the fish 

 grow to enormous size, they must have occasionally 

 come in contact with enormous bass. George Walters, 

 at the Monocacy, told me about fishing off the 

 Aqueduct which crosses the river near his home, and 

 of having caught bass weighing five and six pounds, 

 and hoisting them with hook and line twenty and thirty 

 feet in order to land them. 



John Miller, the Newspaper correspondent, took in 

 one which broke the heavy rope with which he had 

 the fish tied to the rear of his boat, and the bass is 

 estimated to have weighted over six pounds. 



A year ago, in the month of October, the writer, 

 while fishing near the Red Rock, landed one which 

 weighed exactly six pounds. The fish did not take 

 the bait ferociously but gently, then began to "walk 

 off with the line. That was reeled in and then relaxed 

 as the fish began to make frantic efforts to haul the 

 boat from its anchor. By degrees the mighty specimen 

 was drawn nearer the boat and finally Mr. Walters 

 was enabled to place the landing net under the fish 

 and hoist him into the boat. That was the largest 

 fish of the small-mouthed variety that was caught 



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