Sportive Estuary Fisura, $1 
ing, and its colors are gray, masculated on the back and 
down to the middle of the sides with clouded spots of dark- 
er shade, and all terminating in a gold-colored belly, pecto- 
ral, ventral, and anal fins. The dorsals and tail are clouded 
like the back. The first dorsal is composed of spiked rays, 
and the second soft. 
In angling for large squeteague about the Elizabeth Isl- 
ands and im the Vineyard Sound, heavy combination tracing 
sinkers are used, and the shank-headed bass-hook, baited with 
menhaden, is preferred. There they are taken by still-baiting 
from a boat anchored from thirty to fifty rods from shore, in 
from fifteen to twenty feet water. -The squeteague is one 
of the swiftest fishes of the square-tails, and its ready and 
dashing bite, and short fight, render angling for it with light 
bass-tackle as exciting as for almost any other fish of our es- 
tuaries. For the very small fish shrimp is the best bait; for 
the yellow-fins shedder crab is the best; but for those of the 
large and rounded form of the salmon, the menhaden bait is 
generally preferred. 
It is almost superfluous to state that angling in the tide- 
ways with success requires that attention be paid to the 
stages of the tide. In general, squeteague bite best on the 
second half of the flood tide, but there are places where they 
bite best on the ebb. If outside the mouth of a river, the 
first of the flood is best, while well up the estuary they begin 
biting when the tide is half up, and continue until half ebb. 
Though feeding-ground for squeteague is in deeper water 
than is chosen by striped bass, yet they generally forage 
along the bank of the channel. I have frequently anchored 
my boat so that, angling with the tide,I was sure to take 
nothing but striped bass, but by casting to the right or left, 
outside the bank, within three rods of the boat, I would take 
nothing but squeteague, and an occasional blacktish or tautog. 
In a commercial point of view the squeteague is important. 
The runs of shad up our rivers cease about the first week in 
June, when the squeteague become numerous in our bays and 
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