360 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
near the line which separates Canada from the United 
States, also the tributaries of the Ohio and Mississippi riv- 
ers. Iam informed that they are also most abundant in 
the Potomac, into which river they were introduced twenty 
years ago by a keen fisherman who possessed property on 
its margin. The artificial fly, spoon-bait, or trolling with 
minnow, will all be found successful in their capture. From 
their great activity, strength, and vitality, very strong tackle 
must be used in fishing for them, such, in fact, as gener. 
ally is employed for sea-trout. It is very much to be re- 
. gretted that the efforts made of late years to introduce 
black bass into English waters by myself first, and Mr. 
Parnaby, of Borrowdale, afterward, have-been a failure, for 
they are unquestionably as fine a fish for angling purposes 
as ‘any we possess, and as an article of food are equal to 
our best. 
On the Wabash I have had some magnificent black bass 
fishing. About one mile and a half above the town of Vin- 
cennes, in Indiana, a small rivulet enters it. When floods 
occur in the parent stream the backwater in the tributary 
invariably swarms with black bass, pike, and cat-fish, as 
long as the water is on the increase; and so ravenous will 
these different species become, that, as quick as you can 
supply your hook with bait, so rapidly will the fisherman 
catch them; but the instant the volume of water com- 
mences to abate all will cease to feed, and the disciple of 
Izaak Walton goes unrewarded. All the tributary streams 
of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi are well stocked with 
black bass; but there are few places where I have enjoyed 
better sport than at Mount Carmel, on the Wabash, where 
they abounded in such quantities as to astonish those who 
had never previously visited this pretty, retired village. I 
believe I was the first to use the fly for the capture of black 
bass upon these waters, but so successful was I, that in a 
