26 Big Game Fishes 
length; gut or salmon leader is soon worn off 
by the fine teeth of this noble Cynoscion. The 
bait, if a smelt, six inches in length, is impaled 
through the mouth, the point thrust into the 
belly of the fish, and the mouth of the latter 
bound or closed and fastened to the shank of the 
hook by a silver wire, which should be attached 
to every hook; it prevents the bait from whirl- 
ing and the line from untwisting. The leader 
should bear at least two swivels. Spoons, and 
all kinds of artificial baits, are useless, at least 
in my long and continued experience, the fancy 
of the great bass —and the term bass is a local- 
ism — being for very large baits, as the flying-fish 
or smelt, a prodigious lure for even so large a 
fish. 
In searching for this game the boatman rows 
along the rocky shores of the islands in perfectly 
smooth water, not sixty feet from the high mas- 
sive cliffs which merge into mountains. Often 
the strike comes within a few feet of the rocks ; yet 
the water may be two hundred feet in depth, so 
precipitous are the shores, blue water being found 
at the very portals. Again little bays are entered, 
the mouths of deep cafions which wind upward, 
the great bass being fond of such places; and in 
