590 
FOREST AND STREAM 
October, 1918 
SOME THINGS BASS GO SHOPPING FOR 
THE GASTRONOMIC TASTES OF THE BLACK BASS RUN A WIDE GAMUT OF APPRECIA¬ 
TION FROM THE LOWLY WORM TO SPRIGHTLY GRASSHOPPERS AND CRICKETS 
T HE black bass is a voracious feeder 
for a person of his size. I learned 
that in my apprentice days, when 
upon one occasion that I recall six good, 
standard-sized minnows vanished from my 
scant bait bucket and on the seventh and 
last I managed to outguess the pirate, to 
find him of the mammoth appetite nothing 
more pretentious than a bass just making 
the class of a 
“keeper” (ten 
inches). This and 
other instances 
of his gluttony 
has caused me 
to look upon his 
feeding abilities 
in about the 
same light as the 
capacity of a 
small boy in the 
pie eating con¬ 
test at the vil¬ 
lage fair. 
With all his 
gastronomic 
traits the bass 
is not “finicky” 
about the variety 
of his food. His tastes run a wide gamut 
of appreciation, and the old-timer after 
bass using natural bait provides himself 
with a little of all and some unknowns; 
for in his eccentric way Old Man Bass has 
sprung more than one surprise in the past 
by appropriating some bait shockingly out 
of the class as game fish baits. One of 
these instances occurred to me along a 
certain well-known bass stream; I had 
tried them all during this particular morn¬ 
ing and failed to raise a single fish. There 
happened to be a pile of fresh water clams 
there among the rocks where I was stand¬ 
ing, that some boy fishing for suckers had 
left behind; opening one I cut off a chunk 
of the pink meat and attached it to my 
hook, more in the spirit of idle careless¬ 
ness than with any idea of receiving a 
strike. Imagine my surprise then, when 
from the strip of water weeds along the 
rocky shore something started away with 
my lure in the most businesslike way pos¬ 
sible and a second thereafter I snubbed 
him, to see a beauty of a bass leap out 
of the stream, hooked on my red, fresh 
water clam bait. I have known of bass 
being taken on field mice and pieces of red 
meat; but as a general thing these special¬ 
ties are not a good proposition to rely 
upon. The bass as a rule prefers live, 
active bait, with plenty of colors. In nam¬ 
ing over some of the reliable natural bass 
By BEN C. ROBINSON 
lures I will mention those only which have 
proven their worth to me personally, and 
in the order of their favoritism. 
T HE live minnow is to my personal 
way of thinking the bait paramount 
for the black bass. And in choosing 
this bait I am more partial to the run 
chub, the little, pinkish fellows that are to 
be found in cold, clear spring brooks. The 
reason of my preference to chubs taken 
from cold, fresh water is from the fact 
that they will be found to have more vital¬ 
ity and longevity than the same kind taken 
from the warmer and more sluggish waters 
of the ponds and bayous, and that in itself 
speaks highly for any bait used for the 
purpose of game fishing. Other good baits 
in the minnow line are the black sucker 
and the shiner. The black sucker bait 
has one point that argues strongly in his 
favor, and that is the toughness of the 
little fellow. He is also fairly hardy and 
will stand a spell of hard casting. 
After the minnow comes the frog as a 
reliable bait at most any season of the 
year when they are obtainable. There are 
two kinds of frogs that might be used as 
a lure—the grass frog, or those that will 
be found in low, swampy meadow and 
pasture lands and favoring the high grassy 
banks of little spring runs; and the small, 
active little chaps noticed making their 
headquarters in the stiff grass covering the 
low shores of the streams adjoining the 
weed and brush coves and the lily pads, or 
a more likely place yet, the mud flats in 
the vicinity of bayous and ponds. These 
last named, the little bronze colored frogs, 
are unusually difficult to capture, owing to 
their smallness and neutral coloring; when 
routed they spring among the stiff cover 
of the river grass and unless one provides 
himself with a small net of light screening 
or mosquito bar it will be found almost 
an impossibility to get any number of 
them. But without a doubt they are the 
best bass bait of the two, in fact person¬ 
ally I consider them approaching nearer 
to the live minnow than any other known 
live bait. In using the “bronze” frog ex¬ 
treme care should 
be exercised in 
casting them as 
they are not near¬ 
ly so hardy as 
their brother, the 
spring frog of 
the swamp 
grasses. Either 
of the two makes 
a bait that great 
confidence may 
be placed in. The 
best way to use 
them is in still 
fishing or as a 
troll, either from 
the boat or cast¬ 
ing rod in con¬ 
nection with one 
of the popular patent spinners. 
Crawfish are next on, the bait list, 
with nothing but the best to be said 
for them as a steady and reliable lure. 
Crawfish might be considered seasonable 
at any part of the season when obtainable. 
I know old bass fishermen, ones who come 
in from the campaigns with record creels, 
and they absolutely refuse considering any 
other bait at all outside of crawfish. 
There is no question but what they are the 
one high card in the black bass’s natural 
food. There are a number of ways to pro¬ 
cure the bait, in brooks or ponds where 
there are drifts of small boulders, under 
logs and chunks of detached sod; but the 
best place to look for the crawfish is on 
the shallow riffles of any stream. Be sure 
to choose those that are known as the 
“soft shells,” that is, those that are very 
dark, I might say black, in color and when 
taken up in the hand will be found to be 
soft and spongy. These are the crawfish 
that have shed their shells and are pre¬ 
ferred by the bass. Those with their old 
shells still on are not nearly so good as 
a bait because of the fact that the bass 
seems to consider them as more difficult 
to handle digestively. Some anglers use 
the hard shells in the following manner 
and seem to achieve good success with 
them, they peel the shell off of them care¬ 
fully so as not to kill the bait and fasten 
The old-timer after bass provides himself with every known and some unknown bait 
