124 AMERICAN ‘GAME. 
yowre about—for he is a deuce of a run-away, is your 
’ ten-pound Bass, when the barbed hook is in his jaws. 
He has not so much resource as the Salmon, does not 
often throw himself off the surface water, or strive to fall 
on the tightened line and break it; neither have I seen 
him run in often, if ever, upon the angler, or sulk at the 
bottom. But I think his firstrush, if anything, is stronger, 
and I am sure it is longer, than that of an equal salmon. 
He will fight hard, for his time; but his time, providing 
you keep a taught hand on him, make him work for 
every inch of line, and mind not to let him smash you, 
either against rocks on the bottom, or against piles or 
stumps, the neighborhood of which he loves, and around 
which he is sure to twist you if you let him, will not 
be so long by twenty minutes, as a ten-pounder Salmon 
on a fly, well played, with good tackle—without it you 
have not a chance—and twelve minutes should have him 
dead-beat, and halfdrowned, with the gaff in his glitter- 
ing sides. 
Fly-fishing is not certain for Bass; when they are in 
the humor to take, however, they give fine sport; and in 
a fine spring morning, with a dark ruffle on the water, it 
is worth the while trying. A salmon rod will be re- 
quired for this sport, with a reel, of course; a single-gut 
bottom, and any large, gaudy lake-fly; but none is, I 
think, so killing as that made by the Conroys, especially 
for the Black Bass of the lakes, Gristes Wigricans, an 
entirely different fish, peculiar to the St. Lawrence 
