THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine 



Abundance 



Notwithstanding the numerous agencies which 

 have combined to deplete the waters of game and 

 food fish, the striped bass is still a very important 

 source of profit to the fisherman and of sport for 

 the angler. A fish which furnishes a quota of about 

 1,500,000 pounds to the Eastern markets annually, 

 besides the large numbers caught by anglers, and in 

 addition to a commercial and angling yield of 

 nearly equal volume on the Pacific coast, cannot be 

 considered a declining object of fishery. It seems 

 to be established that there are not so many bass in 

 Northern waters as were reported by the early 

 writers, — Captain John Smith, the Virginia his- 

 torians, Mitchill, Mease, De Kay, and others. The 

 fish have either migrated beyond the limits of pol- 

 lutions, obstructions, and disturbance of their feed- 

 ing and spawning grounds, or they have ceased to 

 visit our shores with the other migratory shoals that 

 still make their appearance annually. 



The sale in Northern markets of tens of thou- 

 sands of young bass, many of them scarcely more 

 than six inches long, must have been followed by 

 local depletion at least. The same unwise demand 

 for immature fish developed in California as soon 

 as the bass began to attract attention in its bays and 

 estuaries, but legal measures were promptly taken 



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