24 
Forest and Stream 
Vol. LXXXII. 
Being 
By G. B. Buchanan. 
“I Saw a Big One Break Water.” 
I T ISN’T my purpose to revive the Civil War 
politely referred to in Dixie as ‘‘the late un¬ 
pleasantness.” On the other hand, should 
any brother “up nawth” be hankering after 
'bloodshed with a hanker that will not be ap¬ 
peased, let the brother repeat that time-honored 
blasphemy about there being no bass fishing in 
the country “save in the cold, clear waters of the 
North.” Oh, you “cold, clear waters of the 
North!” I have read and heard of you since I 
was knee-high-to-a-duck, piscatorially speaking. 
No doubt there is good bass fishing up north 
(in the cold clear waters thereof). Indeed, I 
have caught bass there myself. The Great Lakes 
and the country north were the fishing grounds 
of my earlier years. I wet my first Cuttyhunk 
nine-strand in good old Lake Erie, up under the 
shadow of Put-in-Bay, the place which Grover 
Cleveland, one of the most genial and true sports¬ 
men we have ever had, called the “banner bass 
ground of the country.” There is a great rock 
and gravel plateau forming the floor of Lake 
Erie west of Put-in-Bay. The waters above it 
are quite shallow, as the Great Lakes go. Also 
clear, and I dare say cold, at least in February or 
March. Anyway, the bass seem to congregate 
there for spawning purposes. The law now pro¬ 
hibits the taking of bass during spawning sea¬ 
son; but immediately after it the region is un¬ 
questionably a great one for bass fishing. 
Since then I have stalked the worthy bass to 
other climes, through the Alleghanies to the east, 
and on southward. Always I find him gamey and 
a good fighter—and I have come to the conclu¬ 
sion that, after all, the “cold, clear waters of the 
north” is but one of those pet phrases upon which 
the stove-league anglers build hour after hour 
of momentous palaver. The stove-league in base- 
balldom each winter decides the fate of dozens 
of weighty problems—and next playing season 
the problems come up all over again. 
So it is, in my opinion, with this cold clear 
water up north business. I think it was Holder 
who said it first. With Holder I have certainly 
no quarrel. He is a great angler. I take off my 
hat to him and his really wonderful books. If it 
is his honest opinion that “there is no bass fish¬ 
ing save,” etc., etc., all right. Let him keep it. 
But to the many others who have followed 
Holder in this statement I am not so easily recon¬ 
ciled. They wanted to write something about 
bass, I surmise. They had maybe fished up north 
and found the bass good sports. They knew 
nothing of the south except, perhaps, what they 
had read. Presto! The worthy scribe sets down 
and pens the. wonderful thought that “after all, 
there is no bass fishing in this country save that 
in the cold, clear waters of the north.” Now the 
angler’s stove-league gets hold of that. They 
hold a palaver. Probably not one of the jurists 
has ever been anywhere near the Sunny South. 
Yet the concensus of the meeting is, gentlemen, 
that there is absolutely no bass fishing in the uni¬ 
verse save “in the cold, clear waters of the north.” 
Say! It seems inexplicable to me that the poor 
devils who have had to fish down south all their 
lives haven’t just naturally turned up their toes 
and died of heart-break—longing for that “cold, 
clear water of the north” kind of bass! 
Well, I have caught bass in both localities and 
I can truthfully say that, in the same conditions 
of water there is, in my opinion, no difference. 
If anything, I should commit the heresy of say¬ 
ing that the bass fishing down south is better 
than up north. And that goes! Of course, topo¬ 
graphical conditions of some parts of the south 
are such that streams are sluggish, low lying, 
full of mud, and warm. Such conditions make 
for slight sluggishness on the part of the finny 
inhabitants. Yet this condition is not wholly 
confined to the south. In the same type of stream 
up north you will find the same so-called slug¬ 
gishness. I have personally never satisfied my¬ 
self there is any difference, although I confess I 
haven’t yet applied the test of stop-watch and 
draft-meter. I have, however, noted that in 
these warm, sluggish waters the big mouth is 
more at home than the small mouth; that the 
water condition is more favorable to large 
growth; that the fish average larger, and if there 
is any inherent sluggishness in them they fully 
make up for it in greater weight and size. In 
other words, say the size limit in the “cold clear 
waters, etc.” is four to five pounds for small 
mouth and about six for big mouth, it will be 
found that in the south the small mouth will 
Under These Placid Waters I Knew There Was 
a Big One. 
June 13, 1914 
Johnny Reb’s Bass 
a Dissertation on Bass Fishing in Southern Waters 
787 
