398 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March ii, 19x1. 
****** 
A Classic for Sportsmen 
AMERICAN BIG GAME IN ITS HAUNTS 
= Boone and Crockett Club Series 
Edited by GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL 
An invaluable work not alone for the sportsman, but for the student and lover 
of wild life Treats of big game preservation and protection in the broader sense; 
tells of the habits, habitat and life history of the larger wild animals; touches upon 
the problem of the public forest domain, and is rounded out by interesting hunting 
reminiscences by such leaders in the fraternity of big-game hunters as Madison 
Grant Paul J Dashiell, George Bird Grinnell, Jas. H. Kidder and W. Lord Smith. 
Bound in cloth, library edition, heavy paper, richly illustrated, 497 pages. 
Postpaid, $2.50 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO., 127 Franklin Street, NEW YORK CITY 
Rhymes of The Stream and Forest ; 
FRANK MERTON BUCKLAND 
One of the freshest, most delightful collections of outdoor verse offered for 
many a day. They are the outpourings of a spirit which loves nature, the woods 
and streams and growing things, and appreciates its charms. This 
Mr. Buckland's verse has a charm that is at once rare and delightful. 1 his 
book will appeal to every outdoor man or woman, and particularly to the Brethren 
° f t 'its^forin’is as attractive as its pages, closely simulating the appearance of the 
standard fly-book, printed on heavy laid paper with ornamental border designs o 
trout flies, pocket for clippings, and blank pages for copying or individual com¬ 
position. It is just the thing for the den, for the pocket, or for a gift to the friend 
who loves the big world out of doors. 
Postpaid, $1.25 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO., 127 Franklin Street, NEW YORK CITY 
*jU«< <<<<<< <<A<4<44<< 
PORK RIND FOR BLACK BASS. 
“I have been fishing for black bass for years,” 
said a New York angler in the Sun, ‘‘and I 
rather flattered myself that I knew the game 
pretty well until last winter when I spent sev¬ 
eral weeks in Florida. Within a radius of ten 
miles of the little hotel where I was stopping 
there were a hundred fresh water lakes, some 
of them little more than ponds, to be sure, 
but all containing big mouth bass. 
“In the climate of Florida these fellows keep 
on growing all the year round, with plenty to 
eat, and the consequence is they attain a size 
unheard of in the lakes of the North. A ten 
pounder is by no means uncommon, and I have 
seen them weighing up to eighteen pounds; 
great, big sluggish fellows. 
“In the inland lakes of Florida the guides 
use for bait a live shiner anywhere from nine 
to twelve inches long. Just why I don’t know, 
but they say it is impossible to get these shiners 
in bait seines, and all have to be caught first 
with hook and line. Dough mixed with cotton 
is the favorite lure for them. My guide em¬ 
ployed a couple of boys, who fished all day 
long for his shiners, which, added to his own 
charge and carriage hire, made a day’s fishing 
somewhat of a luxury. 
“The accepted method of fishing for bass in 
these waters is to troll with a big float. The 
water is of a uniform depth, about four feet, 
and you adjust your float accordingly, so that 
the bait can’t quite reach the weeds on the 
bottom. _ .... 
“When you get a strike you just sit and wait 
till you think the fish has had time to gorge 
your big bait, paying out line if you think, it 
necessary. And when you strike him you’ve 
got to strike mighty hard to drive the hook 
home, for you’ll find that big float, coming as 
it does to break the connection between you 
and your fish, makes a lot of difference. I 
broke a $25 Bethabara rod in three pieces strik¬ 
ing a bass that when I pulled him in hand over 
hand I found wasn’t much larger than the bait 
he had been trying to swallow. I used a heavier 
rod after that and caught some weighing over 
ten pounds. 
“In these lakes, just out of curiosity, I tried 
various methods I had frequently used in the 
North, but either the conditions were different 
or the fish were educated only to the one way 
of fishing. At any rate I had little hick, ex¬ 
cept with the live shiners and the big float 
trolled slowly after a rowboat. 
“From Lakeland I went to Ponce Park, on 
the east coast, where it’s all salt water fishing. 
At this point Spruce Creek empties into Turn- 
bull Bay, and my guide told me one day there 
were plenty of black bass up there. We waited 
for a day when the tide was right and made 
the fifteen mile trip up the creek, getting a 
glimpse of several alligators on the way. 
“My favorite method of bass fishing is to 
cast a strip of pork rind with a slit half way 
up, which with a little motion of the rod in 
retrieving the bait gives it the appearance of 
a frog swimming. I use a rod with the reel 
below the hand built on the lines of a fly rod 
except that it is heavy enough to cast a frog. 
I strip the line in by hand, coiling it in the 
bottom of the boat, scarcely using the reel at 
all. It is necessary to use the finest quality 
braided silk line for this, otherwise it is apt 
to kink. 
“When we reached the fresh water my guide 
shut off the power of the boat and began to 
paddle. The stream was about a hundred feet 
wide, with overhanging water birches and cy¬ 
press trees, and under the shadow of this 
foliage I began casting close up to either bank. 
Old Deacon Jones was my guide, and this sort 
of bass fishing was quite foreign to his ideas. 
But how those bass did jump at that pork rind. 
“We only had about four hours of fishing, 
and when at 2 o’clock we counted our catch 
and found we had forty-two bass, the largest 
weighing a trifle over nine pounds, I was quite 
ready to quit. The deacon had a profound re¬ 
spect for me after that, and during my stay at 
Ponce Park we made several trips up Spruce 
Creek, but never exceeded our first day’s catch.” 
