470 .MANUAL FOE YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



becomes soft and flaccid. It is not nearly so game a fish 

 as the striped bass, or the king fish, yet it is not without 

 its advocates and admirers. 



Immediately around the Battery, and even from Castle 

 Garden hridge, or the flats off Communipaw, in Butter- 

 milk Channel, at Bergen Point, Elizabethtown Point, in 

 the Kills, and in Newark bay, this fish frequently affords 

 considerable sport. 



The barb, or king fish, is a far superior fish to the last 

 both in sporting qualities and in culinary excellence. He 

 is to be caught with the same tackle described under the 

 head of the weak fish, but he requires a smaller hook, as 

 he has but a little mouth, and he takes the shedder crab 

 more freely than any other bait. It is said that in 1827, 

 a man and a boy in Jamaica bay, off Rockaway, killed four 

 hundred and twenty-two king fish in six hours ; but this, 

 if it ever were done, is never like to be done again, as the 

 king fish is said to be becoming very rare, some say in con- 

 sequence of the persecution of the blue fish, which has re- 

 cently become, in proportion as the barb has waxed scarce, 

 largely abundant. 



The king fish is a bold, sharp biter, and fights hard 

 when he is first hooked. He is not, however, a heavy 

 customer, running only from £ a lb. to 2 lbs. at the 

 utmost, a maximum which he rarely attains. 



In New York harbor, the flats from Bergen Point to 

 Jersey City, in the neighborhood of the rock known as 

 Black Tom, and opposite Communipaw, are the best waters 

 in this vicinity for the king fish ; but they are also taken 

 in the Passaic bay and the bays of Long Island. 



