THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine 



Temperature of 'Bass-Waters 



There is an impression existing among many 

 iwho are interested in the life-history of the small- 

 mouthed black bass, that they thrive only in clear, 

 rocky, cool streams. Their lusty life and rapid 

 increase in such rivers as the Delaware, Susque- 

 hanna, and Potomac would seem to negative such 

 a statement. True, the black bass, like the trout, 

 is ever on the move up the fluvial waters: the latter, 

 from the imperative instinct of reproduction; the 

 black bass, I am led to believe, simply from the need 

 of new feeding-grounds, for they can be found, 

 during the spawning-season, on their beds, in a 

 stretch of more than a hundred miles on the Dela- 

 ware River in the month of June. Moreover, 

 and again as to their thriving only in cool water, 

 I have frequently stepped into the shallows along 

 the banks of that river, when the water produced 

 a sensation of heat to my feet and ankles, and 

 yet, then and there, a fly-cast made fifty feet 

 away creeled a bass from water hardly more than 

 two feet in depth. In the shallows the degree 

 of heat was certainly 85° to 90° F., and where 

 the fish was hooked it was surely not less than 80°. 

 This experience, many times repeated, was con- 

 firmed at East Branch, Delaware County, N. Y., 

 at least 200 miles above tide-water as the river 



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