436 Book of the Black Bass. 



shame to the cheek of the most hardened; and yet they 

 were perpetrated by men calling themselves anglers, or at 

 least fishermen, for there is a difference in degree as well 

 as in kind of those claiming allegiance to the " gentle " art. 



On the first evening of my arrival I saw two large piles 

 of black bass, enough to fill several barrels, burnt by the 

 guides at the edge of the lake. Nine-tenths of them were 

 caught with the hand-line and troUing-spoon by anglers — 

 Heaven, save the mark ! — who were fishing for count, or 

 vying with each other as to who should bring in the greatest 

 number. 



It is no excuse to say that the bass were there to be 

 caught, or that the parties knew no better. They woidd 

 have resented warmly any imputation that they were other 

 than humane, conscientious sportsmen. I will give a scrap 

 of conversation that I overheard on the hotel veranda that 

 evening; the reader can then judge for himself and -draw 

 his own conclusions. 



" Well, old man, what luck to-day ? " 



" Bully ! I took in out of the wet a hundred and twenty- 

 five bass, and would have had more but I lost all of my 

 spoons. Then I went ashore and shot three or four ' por- 

 kies ' with my pistol ! " 



Now here was a bloody-minded butcher who was not con- 

 tent, with the help of his boatman, with slaughtering over 

 a hundred bass with the spoon, but who had the effrontery 

 and insolence to brag of it before gentlemen; and to cap 

 the climax of his truculence he boasted of shooting several 

 innocent porcupines, a harmless, clumsy animal that can 

 not get out of one's way, and whose only means of defense 

 is to hump up its back and erect its quills ; an animal that a 

 sportsman never thinks of molesting. 



" Pshaw ! " chimed in a young man, who with several 



