116 Fisuinc rv AmericAN WATERS. 
hook as will answer for small striped bass and squeteague, 
and one strong enough for tautog, or one rather larger than 
the common blackfish hook. Let your leader be part of your 
line, say three fourths of a yard long, and attached to a brass 
swivel; run the line through the tracing sinker, and attach 
it to the upper end of the swivel. Bait with shrimp, shedder 
crab or shedder lobster, fiddler, soft or hard shell clam, or the 
sand-worm dug along the sandy shore at low tide. 
The tautog bites like the sheepshead, but with less power. 
You feel the premonition, but when he dashes aside the pull 
is weaker than that of a sheepshead. I mean now a tide-run- 
ning tautog of from three to eight pounds, which feeds on the 
edge of swift water, has a white nose, and is fair game. The 
tautog which feeds close to the base of the rocks is an adept 
at getting hooks or sinkers fastened in the clefts, for so soon 
as he bites he darts under or between the rocks, leaving the 
angler thankful if the fish will liberate the hook or sinker as 
the price of his freedom. The bite of a small blacktish of 
from one fourth of a pound to a pound is like that of a roach 
or sunfish, but large ones bite with energy, and play so as to 
afford sport. All the fishes angled for along the coast, except 
the striped bass and bluefish, are usually landed with a net. 
The color of the tautog is bluish-black, with a lighter shade 
under the belly and lower mandible. The mouth is furnish- 
ed with very small tecth. The engraving is a perfect coun- 
terpart of the fish in appearance. 
Tue Frounver.— Pleuronectes Flesus. 
The flounder is an important estuary fish for boys and hand. 
line fishers, though it is not appreciated very highly by rod 
fishermen. It is one of the latest fishes angled for in autumn 
when the icicles begin to form, and it is the first fish that 
bites in the spring. It is to be found in the estuaries and up 
the rivers as far as salt water runs; also in our bays. It is 
a fish of the temperate zone, and, from its great numbers in 
spring in all the inlets from the Atlantic, is a profitable fish, 
