
old boat apa:t later, and we are still 
looking for another rock bass haunt 
It’s handy to know 
at Ronkonkoma. 
where you can get a few rock bass on 
those days when, change lures as you 
will, you cannot tempt Mr. Black Bass. 
|* was because Ronkonkoma was im- 
possible on Saturdays and holidays 
that we were forced to look farther. 
It is becoming too popular with bathers 
and boaters, and there are some motor 
boats on the lake now, too, hauling 
parties around the lake, which keep up 
a constant splash on 
holidays. 
We next tried Artist 
Lake, a handsome bit 
of water fifteen miles 
east (further from New 
York). There we did 
fairly well, but most of 
the bass were too small 
to keep. There are 
some pretty fair yellow 
perch there, but while 
I do not scorn the rock 
bass, as some fellows 
do, I somehow cannot 
get excited over a yel- 
low perch. He’s too 
slow for my taste. 
Then we looked about, 
but each time we found 
a lake, we discovered 
that it was on some- 
body’s farm, and while 
few of these farmers 
have time to fish, they 
do not like to have 
fishermen about, nor do 
I blame them after 
getting better acquaint- 
-ed and learning how 
people from the city, 
when allowed to fish, 
'tramped over  straw- 
berry fields and did all 
manner of other objec- 
_ tionable things. 
Il approached one of 
these farmers, asking if 
. I might fish there. He 
_loked me over with a 
_ frown and said he did 
sometimes “let nice 
people fish.” I tried to look like “nice 
_ people,” and asked him some questions 
_ which showed him that I had, in my 
, time, trotted a furrow behind a plow. 
We did fairly well in this lake, and 
' would have been contented with that, 
I suppose, had we not been put to the 
| necessity, one week-end, of supplying a 
' certain number of fish at the farmer’s 


house where we stopped over night. 
I told the farmer’s wife we would 
, have bass for everybody for breakfast 
_—for our family of four, and hers 
of four, We fished hard to make that, 
* 
Drawn by Louis Rhead 
The leap for liberty—large-mouth black bass 
for the bass were running about one 
pound each, and we wanted one for 
each person. Finally, we had them, 
and you can imagine our plight when 
she told me, when I showed them to 
her, that she had just received a tele- 
phone call that some of her people— 
seven of them—were coming out from 
Brooklyn, that night. We had to get 
seven more bass. 
time, and while the best time of day 
was at hand, we were tired and our 
minnows (we had been unable to do 
anything with 
lures) were neither 

large nor plentiful enough to depend on. 
S° to help meet the emergency, she 
told of another little lake, of which 
we had never heard, and told me that 
if I would use her name, the farmer 
who owned it would let us fish there. 
He did, and in quick succession, we took 
the needed seven small-mouthed bass 
we needed. As we left that lake that 
evening, I thanked. the old fellow, and 
he told me that while he had not wanted 
people to fish there, we were welcome 
to come when we desired—and that 
It was then dinner. 
has been like getting money from home. 
ISHING either of these little lakes, 
and still another and smaller one 
nearby that is literally alive with bass 
too small to take, is no snap. In two 
of them we have never found anything 
that could serve as bait except frogs, 
and they are scarce. In the third there 
are a few small minnows. They will 
seldom take lures. So, we drive over 
to Lake Ronkonkoma, get our minnows 
(not always easy, because the banks 
are free from inlets where you could 
corner the minnows) 
and sail back again, go- 
ing as fast as we can to 
keep the minnows alive. 
Here, a folding cloth 
minnow bucket has been 
a godsend, for’ the 
slight oozing of the 
water with the atten- 
dant evaporation has 
helped to keep the min- 
nows cool. We also 
follow the practice of 
throwing the wet min- 
now net over the top 
of the buckets, and this 
evaporation also helps. 
Incidentally, we have 
had some _ interesting 
experience with the 
cooling effects of evap- 
oration, and on more 
than one occasion have 
arrived home, seventy 
miles away, with live 
bass and rock bass, by 
carrying them in a 
cloth bucket, under a 
wet net, on the running 
board of the benzine 
buggy. Nor did we run 
any risk with the some- 
what numerous motor- 
cycle officers that patrol 
these parts. 
Late this autumn, 
near the end of the sea- 
son, I took five bass 
(about a pound each) 
before breakfast. It 
was cold that morning 
—in fact, so cold that 
the guides of the casting rod filled with 
ice every few minutes—and the cold 
weather, of course, had a good deal to 
do with keeping the fish alive. I took 
them off the hook carefully, and put 
them into a floating net bag to keep 
them alive, planning to take them home 
that night. They were still alive that 
evening, and we got them home alive— 
five of them in a little bucket. There 
was scant room for water in the bucket. 
It was just about filled with fish. But 
the evaporation of the water from the 
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