Fishing in North Carolina. 45 



a boat load of Chowan River sluggards, hungry 

 enough to be sure, to grab at any reasonable 

 bait, but too lazy to do much else than sulk — 

 doglike — will snarl over a bone but will not play 

 tag with it. 



In the vicinity of Wilmington there is some 

 fairly good big bass fishing. Take a boat at 

 Wilmington, go up North East River with the 

 tide to the mouth of Prince George Creek; and 

 fish it up to Castle Hayne, which is as far as a 

 boat can pass. This is an ideal still-fishing 

 creek and reminds one of the gloomy everglades 

 of Robeson and Bladen counties. The water is 

 jet black, deep nearly everywhere, and the banks 

 are bordered far out into the water with a 

 thick mass of long evergreen weeds — which 

 sometimes are uprooted by strong wind and un- 

 usual tides and thereafter form floating islands, 

 wafted for years up and down the creek by wind 

 and tide. A boat cannot make headway over 

 these floating islands, but must go around or 

 push them aside. An immense cypress swamp 

 borders the Castle Hayne side of the creek, ex- 

 tending to the North East River, probably two 



