The King Bass of the Delaware 



Lionell Phillips sent me a charming bass story 

 written while at his bungalow on the banks of the 

 Delaware. Zane Grey has a place there too, and 

 he and his brother have told me some mighty tales 

 of the bass they have taken from that historic river. 

 Mr. Phillips writes : " My main occupation at pres- 

 ent is catching small-mouth bass (sometimes with 

 your pattern bass bug), so I scribbled off my story 

 of My Tragic Moment." Some story, I'll say, old 

 man, and so will all the rest when they read it. 



Ever since I have been " knee high to a grass- 

 hopper " I have fished the upper reaches of one of 

 the best bass streams in the east the Delaware River. 

 On it I have gone through the stages of sapling, steel 

 rod, casting-rod and bamboo fly-rod, through live bait, 

 bait-casting, fly-rod and spinner, and finally wet flies 

 and bass bugs. This river is my home grounds for 

 fishing even after experiences in several widely sep- 

 arated states. 



Not fifty yards away from my bungalow, nestling 

 under the mountain that forms one bank of the river, 

 is a particularly deep pool or pocket into which the 

 fast waters of a quarter mile long rift empty. Years 

 ago, while still in the exclusively live-bait stage of 



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