Pishing in North Carolina. 137 



Two many roaches in a pond will play havoc 

 with the spawn of other fish unless those other 

 fish do their duty by decimating the roaches; 

 hut the bass will not fail in this line of profit, 

 pleasure and duty. 



An overstocked pond is almost as bad as no 

 pond at all, unless the fish are fed from the 

 outside; that is by the owner, and even then 

 they will become stunted, and will not breed 

 well. 



Thirty years ago there were twenty times as 

 many private fish ponds in ISTorth Carolina as 

 there are today, and the cause of the decline 

 was chiefly through the introduction, unwitting- 

 ly, hj' the government of the detestable Ger- 

 man carp. This is the hog of the fish family, 

 muddy -in taste and soft, destructive of spawn 

 and eats out a mud dam more energetically than 

 a muskrat. 



If all the fish eggs spawned were hatched and 

 came to maturity the waters of the earth would 

 overflow the land. A salmon weighing 50 

 pounds is said to spawn two million eggs. 



It is a mistaken idea that very old ponds 



