STRIPED BASS. 139 



tlie ocean ; the squid is towed with troUing tackle 

 behind the sail or row boat, in the quiet waters of 

 the Middle States ; while the fly is used with stout 

 rod and long line wherever the fresh current of 

 some river haunted by fish falls directly into the salt 

 water of the sea. 



For casting with the menhaden from the rocks, 

 Cuttyhunk Island, Point Judith, West Island, 

 Pasque Island, Montauk Point, and ]S"ewport Island 

 itself, are favorite localities; while the Little Falls of 

 the Potomac at the Chain Bridge, near Washington, 

 where the green waters dash over the sunken rocks 

 and eddy round the cliffs that rise perpendicular 

 from the river's brink, furnish the finest fly fishing 

 for bass in the world. 



For bait-casting the necessary implements are a 

 large reel, running on steel pivots, two hundred 

 yards of flax line attached to a Y ° hook with a 

 round head, and a rod of not over nine feet in 

 length, with a large agate funnel top. "With such 

 tools experienced fishermen can cast a slice cut 

 from the side of a menhaden, and weighing about 

 three ounces, two hundred, aye, nearly three hun- 

 dred feet into the curling breakers of the Atlantic 

 ocean, and kill bass that wUl pull down the scales at 

 fifty, sixty, and seventy pounds. 

 ■ A mode of preparing a bass line to render it 

 light and water-proof, without weakening it, is 

 recommended by excellent authority, and is simply 

 to soak it for one night in fish oil which does not 

 rot linen, to hang it up to drain the following day, 



