430 Book of the Black Bass. 



to quote from Bartram, who wrote of the " trout " (black 

 bass) of Florida and the waj' of taking them with the 

 bob, in 1764, as follows : 



" They are taken with a hook and line, but without any bait. 

 Two people are in a little canoe, one sitting in the stern to steer, 

 and the other near the bow, having a rod ten or twelve feet in 

 length, to one end of which is tied a string line, about twenty 

 inches in length, to which is fastened three large hooks, back to 

 back. These are fixed very securely, and tied with the white hair 

 of a deer's tail, shreds of a red garter, and some parti-colored 

 feathers, all which form a tuft or tassel nearly as large as one's 

 fist, and entirely cover and conceal the hooks; that is called a 

 ' bob.' The steersman paddles softly, and proceeds slowly along 

 shore ; he now ingeniously swings the bob backwards and forwards, 

 just above the surface and sometimes tips the water with it, when 

 the unfortunate cheated trout instantly springs from under the 

 reeds and seizes the exposed prey.'' 



I have many times seen the bob used in Florida Just as 

 described by Bartram more than a century ago, and it is 

 just as effective to-day as it was then. If there is any 

 thing in the notion of certain angling authorities, that fish 

 after a time become educated or accustomed to certain ar- 

 tificial baits, as files, etc. — becoming first suspicious, and 

 finally refusing them altogether, then the black bass of 

 Florida must be very dull of comprehension, must have 

 sadly neglected their educational privileges and opportuni- 

 ties, or else the said "theory," like many another from 

 " across the herring pond," originated in the fertile brain 

 of some unfortunate angler to account for an empty creel. 



Once, when in Florida, two of us had gone several miles 

 up a river one day for deer and turkeys. When the sun 

 was nearly down we had one deer, and had located several 

 more, and also had found a turkey-roost near by. We con- 



