THE BLACK BASS 



There are two species of bass, the small-mouth and the big- 

 mouth. The latter is generally considered easier to take and 

 not as hard a fighter. But if a small-mouth bass is taken in a lake, 

 where the water is warm, he is a sluggish fish. Give each fish 

 the same and the best conditions, cold water and some current, 

 and there is but little difference, at least in my experience. The 

 large-mouth resembles the small-mouth, and has Salmoides as 

 a specific name. He is bigger, his mouth is larger, and his lower 

 jaw protrudes more. He has a wider range than the small- 

 mouth, and now can be taken in many parts of Europe from 

 France to Eussia, and far to the south. In Florida this fish 

 attains colossal size ; bass weighing twenty-five pounds having 

 been taken with bait, and Dr. Henshall took a fourteen-pounder 

 With a fly. In the north, an eight-pound big-mouth is rare. It 

 forms a little nest on gravelly or sandy bottom, or if the water 

 is deep, on weeds floating at the surface. I have seen a bass so 

 devoted to its nest that it paid little or no attention to me, and 

 would dash at a stick I thrust into the water. 



There are a score of fresh^-water fishes in American waters that 

 could be included as game fishes but which I have not space to 

 describe. The squaw fish, or the ' king of the minnows,' will rise 

 to a fiy, and attains a length of four feet, but is not much of a 

 fighter. The so-called ' white salmon ' of the Colorado (Pty- 

 cocheilus lucius) is the giant of the Cyprinidae. Specimens have 

 been taken in the Salton Sea and Colorado Eiver five feet long and 

 weighing seventy and eighty pounds. It is not a salmon, though 

 this name adheres to it. The Horny-head (Hyiopsis) is a hard 

 fighter, but a member of the minnow tribe, as is the mighty 

 tarpon a herring. The Eocky Mountain whitefish {Coregonus), 

 from Western North America, is considered game. It is about 

 one foot in length and weighs four pounds. It will take bait. 

 It is one of the most delicious of fishes to eat. Another, the 

 Broad whitefish of British Columbia, the Yukon, and elsewhere, 

 attains a weight of thirty pounds and is reported to be a gallant 

 fighter in Alaska. 



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