64 FISHES OF THE VICINITY OF NEW YORK 



our ocean shores and also ascends the Hudson River abundantly. It is 

 the finest food fish taken locally. Before the Weakfish arrive, rod and 

 line anglers from the city often take their boats up the Hudson River in 

 pursuit of Striped Bass. After the Weakfish have gone, Striped Bass are 

 again in season. They are now often fished for off the beach by casting 

 through the surf. This is the type of fishing hereabouts in which the 

 catch of fish is of least importance. — Just an occasional Bass to lend 

 a touch of sanity to the performance will keep a whole row of anglers 

 on the beach vying with one another in the skill and distance with which 

 they can cast through the surf. Most of the Bass now taken near New 

 York are small, from two to six or seven pounds in weight. It takes 

 especial skill to hook and land the bigger ones, unless by luck. 



The average maximum weight of the Striped Bass is probably about 

 twenty pounds. It not infrequently reaches fifty pounds, but rarely 

 exceeds that size. There is a record of an 112-pound fish from Cape 

 Cod, however. 



The well-known White Perch is a close relative of the Striped Bass 

 and agrees with it in essentials of structure. It is characteristic of coast- 

 wise ponds but also found in brackish or even salt water. It is a fish 

 somewhat deeper bodied than the striped bass, its depth contained two 

 and two thirds times in its length to the base of the tail fin. Its mouth is 

 smaller than that of its relative, its tail fin only shghtl}^ forked. Its 

 color is uniform silvery or whitish on the sides and more or less oliva- 

 ceous on the back. This is a fish about the size of a Yellow Perch or a 

 trifle larger, and as a table fish superior to that species. It may readily 

 be told from the Yellow Perch by the absence of black bars on the sides. 

 The White Perch is one of the most universally popular panfish through- 

 out the Atlantic seaboard. It reaches a weight of little over two pounds. 

 The White Bass is an inland representative of the Striped Bass from the 

 Mississippi valley and Great Lake region. It has similar stripes but is a 

 deeper bodied fish with a more convex back and longer anal spines, the 

 longest about one third as long as the head. It has been inrtoduced 

 locally. 



The Sea Bass is one of our commonest local food fishes most plenti- 

 ful on fishing banks a little off-shore, and the young abound in coast- 

 wise bays in autumn. Its spiny dorsal fin is joined to the base of the 

 soft dorsal as in the case of the fresh-water sunfishes. The tail fin is 

 rounded. There are filamentous appendages from the tips of the dorsal 

 spines and one from the upper corner of the tail fin which give the fish a 

 rather outlandish appearance. The mDuth is large, the color blackish. 



