110 Fisumng in American WATERS. 
heaving of the anchor for good fishing. The charge for pas- 
sage includes hand-line tackle and bait, so that a man may 
start in the morning empty-handed, and be landed at home 
the same evening with a large mess of fish. 
The porgee is a pan-fish of sweet and delicate flavor when 
first caught, but its juices soon become absorbed, and, with 
the loss of its juiciness, becomes nearly tasteless. While 
casting along the coast for striped bass, anglers frequently 
hook these nimble shiners, and the guides always draw them 
at once and place them in moss between a cleft of rocks for 
their own eating, preferring them to the striped bass. 
The porgee is supposed to spawn on the weedy banks with 
the sea bass and tautog early in spring, when the last year’s 
hatch leave for estuaries, purveying to the head of tide- 
waters. In angling for this fish perch tackle is used. The 
rod is from ten to eleven feet in length, multiplying reel car- 
rying a hundred yards of fine linen or silk line, cork float, and 
swivel sinker, single-gut leader and snells, with minnow 
hooks. Taking them is pretty sport for ladies and children. 
Use shrimp or clam bait, and let the bait nearly cover the 
point of the hook; and where they are numerous—as they are 
throughout summer in nearly all tidal waters in and above 
the estuaries—the angler will pair them nearly every time 
he baits his hooks. The frshion is becoming more and more 
prevalent along the tidal waters of the Atlantic coast, where 
they are shut in from the heaving and throbbing of the sea, 
for whole families to take a seat in a row-boat toward even- 
ing, and row out to some favorite ground not far from shore, 
but at a sufficient distance to enjoy different landscape views 
of both shores, and there to anchor the boat and angle for 
porgees, with an occasional sea bass, squeteague, and black- 
fish. Rocking in a boat over the running tide is great food 
to vitality, and the evening scenes from the water, with the 
pleasing exercise of angling, are blessings to be thankful 
for. 
