470 MANUAL FOR 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 bridge, 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 3 a Ib. 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. 
