228 With Rod and Gun in New England 



CHAPTER X. 



His Excellency: The Black Bass. 



By Dr. JAMES R. HENSHHLL. 

 Author of " Book of the Black Bass," etc. 



The black bass is a cosmopolitan. No other game-fish is so widely 

 distributed. Large-mouth or small-mouth, he now exists, naturally or by 

 transplanting, in Canada, in nearly every State of the Union, England, 

 Scotland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Originally a character- 

 istic American fish, his range has been extended to wherever the gentle 

 art of angling is known and practised. 



The love for black-bass fishing is co-extensive with its wide and ex- 

 pansive range. The number of black-bass anglers at the present day 

 may be reckoned by thousands, where trout fishers are counted by hun- 

 dreds, and salmon fishers by scores. 



The great popularity of the black bass as a game-fish is to be accounted 

 for by its extensive range, its accessibility, and the freedom of its haunts 

 from black flies, midges and mosquitoes, while the streams and lakes it 

 inhabits are no less charming in their surroundings than the abodes of the 

 brook trout or salmon. The evidence of this popularity is shown in the 

 remarkable evolution of the tools, tackle and implements for its capture — 

 the manufacture and sale of which far exceed those for any other game-fish. 



My experience in black-bass angling embraces the cool and limpid 

 waters of the St. Lawrence basin, and extends through the States to the 

 sunny streams of Florida. And wherever found — in waters flowing over 

 metamorphic or stratified rock, or glacial drift, down to those laving the 

 recently formed coral rocks of the southern peninsula — he is ever the same 

 brave, active, vigorous and courageous fish that " inch for inch or pound 

 for pound, is the gamiest fish that swims." 



Black bass are more abundant in small lakes or lake-like streams, 

 where the conditions favorable to their existence and increase are more 

 constant and uniform than in swift streams, where they are exposed to the 

 vicissitudes of freshets, droughts, and sudden changes of temperature 

 which militate against their increase and interfere with their food supply. 

 I have found the black bass more plentiful in certain lakes in Canada, 

 Wisconsin and Minnesota, and in the quiet streams and lakes of Florida 

 than in any other waters that lie between these geographical extremes. 



