Feb. 4, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
181 
As regards bait we have no great selection, 
but for fishing all the year round I consider the 
gray mullet the best. We have also the shad, 
which is very good and some prefer it to the 
mullet, but it is very soft, and small fish bite it 
off leaving only the skin. Sometimes we. use 
prawns which are as large as the middle finger 
and very good bait. All fish take them and the 
Cape salmon are very fond of them. The bar¬ 
racuda is not only a very fine fish and a splendid 
fighter, but an excellent bait, as the flesh is very 
oily and rich. It comes at a season when all 
other kinds of bait are scarce. We generally 
cut it up and salt it over night to harden it. 
There is a small fish called carrantine which is 
a very dirty feeder. It is something like sea 
bream, but has yellow stripes. It is put on whole 
and is a deadly bait for some kinds of fish. 
Cracker shrimps, ’ which are like a miniature 
crayfish, are very good for the smaller fish. The 
Indians use them a great deal. We have what 
we call rock bait and the Dutch rooihaas. It is 
a shell fish something like a scallop with a red 
inside. We skin off the hard exterior and take 
out the center. We also use cuttle fish, and 
small octopus, and a bait called sea lice, which 
are caught from the beach in a wire net as the 
waves recede from the shore. 
Now as to the different kinds of fish: To 
begin with the kingfish, which is very difficult 
to take and is hardly ever captured with a dead 
bait. We mount a mullet with two hooks in 
the tail and one in the chest and bring the wires 
out of the mouth to a swivel at the end of the 
wire cast, throw this out into the water and 
troll it along until the kingfish comes up and 
snaps at it. The water is so clear that we can 
see them waiting for the shoals of mullet and 
going for the bait. Even when hooked it is 
very difficult to land them, and they have been 
caught up to 122 pounds’ weight. One of the 
best known and largest fishes is the Cape salmon, 
which is no relation to the real salmon, but a 
white-fleshed fish allied to the perch. It is very 
bright in color and looks beautiful when it comes 
out of the water. The Cape salmon has been 
described as a very game fish, but that is not 
my own experience, as I have found that it 
usually gives one good run and then comes up 
flat on the side and is easily killed. It bites 
very softly, much like the conger, so you must 
not strike at the first nibble or you are likely 
to lose the fish, and the mouth is very tender, 
so you must be careful in landing it. 
The grunter is a splendid fish and excellent 
eating, and a good fighter on light tackle. It 
gets its name from the grunting noise it makes 
when it is caught. It grows up to about fifteen 
pounds, the mouth is very small, and small hooks 
must be used with prawns or shrimps for bait. 
The mullet, which is a very common fish, is 
very shy, and is seldom caught with rod and 
line. The Indians, however, catch a good many, 
using bread or paste for bait and floating out 
their line with a number of little corks all along 
it- The mullet are eaten a good deal, but they 
are full of intestinal worms, and I never eat 
them myself. 
The shad come round our shores in large 
numbers at certain seasons and the porpoises 
tollow them and make great havoc. They give 
great sport for such small fish and they can 
bite through gut traces. They are rather dry in 
flavor unless put in the pan at once when taken. 
I he rock cod is a very splendid fish and ex¬ 
cellent eating. It feeds about the rocks, and 
when hooked makes for some hole or crevice 
and plunges in, but if you hold on for a long 
time and keep quiet, it may come out again. This 
fish grows very large, though really large ones 
are very seldom caught on account of the diffi¬ 
culties with the rocks. However, one of seventy- 
two pounds was taken the other day. There is 
a well known one that lives under the Durban 
whai f. It must weigh between fifty and one 
' . . . ■■ 
THE LEAPING BLACK BASS. 
A 3%-pound 19-inch small-mouth black bass on the line 
Caught and photographed at Lake Cecebe, Ontario, by 
Bred H. Smythe. Courtesy of the Zoological Society 
hundred pounds, and many people have tried to 
catch it, but though the bait has often been 
dangled over its nose, it has never taken the 
hook. 
Our South African bream are not like yours, 
for they are white with a yellow stripe along the 
side. One of thirteen pounds which I caught 
gave me all the play I wanted. Another kind 
called the rock bream is not so well known. It 
frequents rocky bottoms in the surf and bites 
ravenously at rock bait, but is full of worms 
and we never eat it. 
The barracuda is a grand fish and one of the 
best fighters we get on the rod. It runs out a 
great deal of line and jumps frequently from 
the water. It is caught from a boat by using 
a piece of red flannel instead of a rubber bait, 
but it does not take dead bait unless by spin¬ 
ning The barracuda is excellent eating when 
served with egg sauce. I got a thirty-pounder 
one day when fishing in the channel on a very 
strong tide, and had to play it for half an hour 
before it could be gaffed. 
Another local fish is called the “prodigal son,” 
or Portuguese salmon, and it somewhat resem- 
J es t e barracuda, and is also very hard to 
catch and runs out the line so fast as to burn 
the fingers in trying to brake the reel. 
1 he mussel cracker is quite a different fish 
from all the others, both in its shape-which is 
short and stout built-and also in its habits It 
lives on crayfish and other crustaceans and is 
only caught right among the rocks when it comes 
o feed on them, so that when hooked it has to 
be steered through the narrow channels among 
e rocks, which is a very severe test of the 
fishermans skill. On account of its diet it has 
an excellent taste, and it is, I think, the best 
fish m the colony. 
Ihere are three kinds of sharks which are 
pretty common: the man-eater, the hammer-head 
and the sand shark. The man-eaters are, I be- 
ieve, the same as the blue sharks known in 
L-urope. They are very numerous and we catch 
a great many of them and would catch more if 
hey were not rather too big for us. The largest 
that has been caught on rod and line weighed 
227 pounds, and it was landed in the dark. Mv 
own largest weighed 156 pounds. They run out 
so fast when hooked that they burn the fingers 
and even a coat sleeve in trying to brake the 
revolutions of the reel, and they often leap out 
of the water. 
The hammer-head is also a very fast swim¬ 
mer and fights splendidly, rushing all over the 
place, and in and out of the rocks. It is called 
a hammer-head because the head is shaped like 
that of a hammer, with the eyes at the ends. 
e sand shark is not often caught, as it has 
a smaller mouth even than the man-eater In 
shape it is between a shark and a skate. It has 
two large dorsal fins, and when being brought 
m, these two fins and the tail stand out of the 
water and look like three sails of a boat. When 
caught it always comes in sideways, working all 
its flappers and fins as hard as it can The 
largest yet caught weighed 208 pounds, and the 
man who caught it was quite dead beat with the 
hard work. 
We also have our skates, which are quite dif- 
erent from those in this country; the largest 
caught was i S 6 pounds. One day the Indians 
caught a large eagle ray, which took about iso 
of them all they could do to haul it up the beach 
It was taken on a truck to the place where the 
coal wagons are weighed, and its weight came to 
about ten tons. We also got a large sunfish 
one day near the wharves, and it had to be 
hauled up with the derrick of a ship, as it 
weighed over a ton. 
There are many other kinds of fish which I 
have not space to describe, such as “black-tail ” 
“soldiers,” “springers,” “slingers,” “scavengers” 
and “ribbon-fish.” At times shoals of sardines 
come round our coasts, followed by all sorts of 
large fish, which is very good for sport. Oc¬ 
casionally a turtle is caught. A man saw one 
one day near the pier and threw his line over 
it with bare hooks. It was caught in the turtle’s 
flapper and with a great struggle it was landed 
on the beach and it weighed 120 pounds. 
