A Bair ror Strrivep Bass. 103 
the New York markets, the average retail price being twenty 
cents a pound. The smelt is eminently the winter sport for 
the angler, succeeding the white perch in small tidal creeks. 
This fish will alse take the fly when sunk to their feeding 
level near the bottom. 
When twinkling icicles depend 
From woods that with the bright freight bend, 
When salty stream and open sound 
With adamantine ice are bound, 
Then o’er the solid frozen stream 
The tents of the smelt-fishers gleam ; 
Each opes with axe the crystal floor, 
Then patient watches at the door. 
THE SPEARING, OR SILVERSIDES, 
This is the same order of abdominales .as the smelt and 
caplin, shoals with them, and is eminently a bait for the sal- 
mon and striped bass. Late in October, in a tideway, bait 
with this fish for striped bass. On Pelham Bridge, anglers 
are seen letting the line carry out with the strong tide this 
shiny bait, or casting with float, heht swivel sinker, and this 
bait, which—where the most rapid current slackens toward 
an eddy—attracts the leap of a striped, satin-sided beauty, 
eits of the angler. The 
upper part of the head is rather flat, and the tiny gill rays 
torcing the blood to the ends of the di 
are six in number, and the side-belt shines like silver. 
“ Color.—Pale olive-green above the lateral line; opercles 
and sides silvery; obscure traces just below the lateral line 
