S8 Book of the Black Bass. 



Dr. D. C. Estes, of Lake City, Minnesota, an accom- 

 plished angler and naturalist, records a similar experience 

 in regard to Lake Pepin ; he says : 



" The pike and pickerel are the only fish taken here in the 

 winter. It is strange to many what becomes of the countless 

 numbers of other game fish that throng these waters in the sum- 

 mer season. Bass, which are so numerous then, are never seen in 

 winter. I am quite sure that not a single bass was ever caught 

 here through the ice. I have for years tried all depths of water 

 to raLse one, or to discover one, but have thus far failed. I must 

 believe, then, that they hibernate." 



Grenio C. Scott, in " Fishing in American Waters," 

 quotes an intelligent and veteran black bass angler of 

 central New York, in regard to this habit, and who fur- 

 nishes the following conclusive evidence : 



" I have never known them [black bass] to be taken in winter, 

 and I think they seek a particular location and remain torpid 

 during winter. My attention was directed to this fact about 

 thirty years since. At that time I was in the haibt of spearing 

 fish in a, mill-dam on the outlet of Seneca Lake, at Waterloo, 

 Seneca County, New York. From April to November I found 

 numbers of bass; from December to March I found all other 

 varieties, but no bass. 



" In the winter of 1837, the water was shut oflF at the lake for 

 the purpose of deepening the channel to improve the navigation. 

 This was considered a favorable time to quarry the limestone in 

 the bed of the river ; and upon moving the loose rock in the above- 

 named mill-dam, where the ledges cropped out, there were found 

 hundreds of bass imbedded in their slime, and positively packed 

 together in the crevices and fissures of the rocks. My subse- 

 quent experience has done much to convince me that my theory 

 is correct." 



On this point, A. N. Cheney related to me the follow- 

 ing incidents : 



" A few years ago a man, Seth Whipple, living on the Hudson 

 River, near Glens Falls, in drawing some sunken logs from the 



