30 



riSHES OF THE EAST ATLANTIC COAST. 



one of those beautifully colored, toothsome fishes which only salt 

 water holds within its depths. 



The sheepshead runs m size from half a pound up to fifteen 

 pounds, and like most of the other coast fishes, is a summer visitor ; 

 appearmg in June and leaving in November. This fish runs up 

 from the Souths and increases in size as it nears our waters. The 

 sheepshead is not seen above New York State. Though he seldom 

 appears in such numbers as the bluefish, or even the weakfish, yet 

 sometimes the sheepshead come in great schools, and happy is the 

 fisherman who falls in with such a collection of them. It is a thing 

 to boast of, the capture of a large sheepshead. 



The front teeth of the sheepshead are wisely given hie for a 

 special habit of his ; he swims about sunken logs, along the bottom 

 rocks, and is enabled by his projecting teeth to bite off the different 

 molluscs which form the food of the sheepshead. This grazing habit 

 of the fish has given rise to an arrangement on the Virginia coast 

 by which the certainty of an annual call from the sheepshead is se- 

 cured. A writer in the first volume of The Angtee has well 

 described this plan : 



" The natives drive long stakes of split wood into the bottom of 

 inlets and sounds in square or circular shape, forming pens. On , 

 these stakes the molluscs soon attach themselves, and the sheepshead 

 finds in or about them an attraction habitual where he can 

 eat to his fill without beating about for the delicacies he demands." 

 Sheepshead are caught by hand-line and with rod and reel, and of the 

 two methods of course the skillful angler will chose the latter. The 

 sheepshead is a wary and careful fish, and to draw liim from his na- 

 tive element requires skill and patience. The rod should be a stout 

 «ne, and about nine feet long — the regulation striped bass rod is 

 about right. The line most thought of by skilled sheepshead fish- 

 ermen is a braided linen line of the smallest diameter giving strength 

 enough. To this line is fastened a swivel and tracing sinker, and 

 also a double gut leader composed of two parts, one of which is 

 about two feet in length, the other twelve inches. The best bait is 

 the soft clam, either put on whole or with the shell removed ; the 

 next best is the shedder crab — (is there any living sea animal that 



