188 



THE DRUM. 



in the rare sport uf angling, and has spent a good part of the 

 summer at Shantz's Hotel, Macomb's Dam, fishing with va- 

 ried success for basse and blue-fish, day before yestei'day, * 

 (Thursday,) struck one of the monsters of the deep that 

 sometimes visit that vicinity. On the first pull he thought 

 that he had struck bottom, but his reel soon began to whiz, 

 and his line to run with great rapidity. Finding nearly all 

 his line, 300 feet, run out, he took up his anchor-stone, and 

 away went the boat down the river about a mile ; he then 

 managed so as to make a tack, and up the river they went 

 again, and down and up again for two hours and a half, until 

 finally his majesty was got into shallow water, and a seizure 

 made under the gills, but he slipped grasp and made a sud- 

 den lurch, taking rod and line, and floored himself on the 

 grass about twenty yards from the boat. The gentleman, 

 who is a muscular man, succeeded with some difficulty in 

 getting him into the boat, when he proved to be a drum of 

 the largest size, and on weighing at the hotel weighed a little 

 over seventy pounds. This is believed to be the largest fish 

 ever taken with, rod and reel. The hooks were ordinary 

 basse hooks, with a yard leader on double silk-worm gut. 

 purchased at Brown's, a few days since, in Fulton street, near 

 our office. A fish of the same kind was taken last summer 

 in the Kills, by Mr. Michaels, weighing over forty pounds, 

 and one by Mr. Keese, a few years ago, weighing over fifty 

 pounds; but this caps the climax, and Mr. R. deserves a 

 great deal of credit for his perseverance in this extraordinary 

 feat." 



* August, 1844. 



