August, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
437 
Choosing the lure that will surely get him 
lightning.” There was just time for one 
cast but it was enough. Hardly had my 
fly kissed the water before that fish had 
it — there was no wet-fly business about 
it — and the battle was on. Anyone who 
has tried to manage a canoe in a swift, 
rock-strewn stream, while fighting a 
three-pound bass — he weighed three and 
a quarter — knows the sort of proposition 
I was up against. 
Now that fish was not taking plugs 
nor yet live bait though in an excess of 
rage or curiosity he might have made 
a shy at either: it was insects he wanted 
and an insect he didn’t want he got. By 
the way, for the bass of the streams of 
the upper Mississippi Valley there is no 
better all day fly than that same willow. 
There are others that are good, but none 
so good ; however, I will not quarrel with 
you if you prefer the professor or jock 
scott. The point I wish to make is, he 
who confines himself to one single best 
fly, or method of fishing, is missing some 
of the best things in angling. When you 
start the conversation with, “I never fish 
with anything but — ” I immediately have 
business across the street or go to some 
other church. 
I N the matter of fly-fishing for bass I 
have had better success in flowing 
„ water, not necessarily swift water 
eut water with a decided current. If 
there is current enough to suck the fly 
down around a rock, in under the bank, 
or close up against a snag, I get action, 
instant action. Now it may be that the 
pulling of the current gives a life-like- 
ness to the feathers though I am in- 
clined to believe that ordinarily the fly 
is pulled just beneath the surface, and 
the bass likes his flies well drowned. 
That is not saying that the absolute dry- 
fly will not attract bass. Some years 
ago I sent Forest and Stream a story 
concerning dry-fly fishing for bass on a 
lake which was one of the first if not 
the first contribution upon the subject. 
I have found the dry-fly more effective 
on dead water than upon swift flowing 
streams. And in dry-fly fishing for bass 
the smaller flies are more effective. By 
the way, there is no reason under the 
sun for the great, flamboyant flies one 
sometimes sees employed for bass. Might 
just about as well copy a humming bird. 
Of course the bass will strike at those 
ungainly creations — bless his combative 
heart he will strike at anything — but 
those great ungainly creations rob ang- 
ling of all nicety and poetry; further- 
( CONTINUED ON PAGE 461 ) 
THE MUCH PRIZED CHANNEL BASS 
ONCE THE STRIKE OF THIS MARINE NOMAD IS SIGNALLED UP TGE LINE 
TO THE WAITING ANGLER IT IS NEVER MISTAKEN FOR ANOTHER TOKEN 
By LEONARD HULIT, Associate Editor of Forest and Stream 
I N order to get as lucidly as possible be- 
fore the mind of the reader the many 
interesting habits of this fish it be- 
comes necessary to quote liberally from 
the writings of several students and close 
observers of fish life, as well as to make 
use of personal data covering many years 
of research. 
Primarily, the term “red drum,” which 
has so long designated this superb game 
fish, should be forever discarded in a 
qualifying sense, and the more appropri- 
ate term “channel bass” be universally 
adopted. 
Many years since that eminent author- 
ity on coast fishes, G. Brown Goode, 
wrote that this fish was badly in need of 
and should have a strictly characteristic 
name of its own, and suggested that the 
name, which is now coming into general 
use, north and south alike, be adopted. 
In gathering data for local consump- 
tion, newspaper scribes are prone to take 
as bona-fide the statements as given out 
by net fishermen relating to the move- 
ments and habits of certain varieties of 
fishes, when, as a matter of fact the 
only knowledge they may possess on the 
matter was what Uncle “Jeb” or “Silas” 
so and so told them many years before, 
having never given an hour’s endeavor to 
the unravelling of any one of a thousand 
perplexing questions which annually 
arise pertaining to fish and their habits 
or life histories. 
I would not infer that these same men 
are dishonest in the main; they tell the 
story as they see it, superficially, or as 
it is handed down in legendary manner 
from one generation to another. Oc- 
casionally, however, a real humorist 
appears on the scene, and the informa- 
tion that the scribe receives and passes 
on to his journal for publication is sim- 
ply startling. 
Several years ago one of the best and 
most persistent striped bass fishermen 
that ever visited our coast was annoyed 
and badgered by a representative of one 
of New York’s largest dailies for a com- 
plete story of his method and success in 
taking that much prized fish. He, ac- 
cordingly, took the guileless reporter into 
his confidence and wove and spun a tale 
of truly “Munchausen” character as to 
how, in a frail canoe, he pursued and 
captured the mightiest of these fish in in- 
land lakes where no other mortal knew of 
their being, and with lures entirely of his 
own conception, meanwhile pledging the 
writer to the utmost secrecy as to the lo- 
cation of these wondrous lakes and the 
prizes they contained. The story w T as 
actually printed as given, and was 
copied in many papers of the time until 
the whole subject became a ribald joke 
among the knowing ones. It is perhaps 
needless to state that he wrote no more 
fish stories. 
The above digression is by way of 
emphasis in detailing the proneness of 
the public to imbibe the wildest stories 
regarding fish life, and frequently the 
more improbable the tale the greater the 
readiness for its undisputed acceptance. 
