Bass, Pike, Perch, and Others

by James A. Henshall

If fishing from a boat, where the angler is more apt to be seen, it should be kept in deep water and the casts made toward the haunts of the bass in shallow water. Should the hooked bass break water on a long line, the slight straightening of the bent rod that ensues will tend to keep it taut, and there is nothing more to do. On a short line, however (the bend of the rod being maintained), he should be followed back to the water by a slight lowering of the tip, but it should again be raised as soon as he touches the water. The critical moment is when he is apparently standing on his tail, shaking himself, with wide-opened jaws. If he is given any slack line at this time, the hook is likely to be thrown out.

Lowering the tip to a leaping fish is a good old rule when done understandingly. It has been ridiculed by some anglers who do not seem to have a clear conception of it. They claim that by lowering the tip it gives sufficient slack line to enable the fish to free himself. But if the rod is bent, as it should be, the simple lowering of the tip with a short line merely relieves it somewhat from the weight of the fish; there is no slack line, nor could there be unless the rod is lowered until it is perfectly straight, which no wide-awake angler would permit. As the fish is in the air but a second or two, the careless angler simply does nothing, which is, perhaps, the best thing that could happen for him.

Trolling is practised from a moving boat along the edges of weeds or rushes, or in the neighborhood of gravelly shoals and bars or rocky ledges. The bait may be a minnow or a very small trolling-spoon; if the latter, it should have but a single hook. The revolving spoon is itself the lure, and any addition of a bunch of feathers, a minnow, or a strip of pork-rind does not add to its efficiency in the least, and moreover savors of pot-fishing. A rod and reel should always be used, as trolling with a hand-line is very unsportsmanlike.

Still-fishing is practised from the bank or from an anchored boat. If the bait is live minnows, no float is necessary; but if crawfish, helgramites, cut-bait, or worms are employed, a very small float is useful to keep the bait off the bottom. The boat should be anchored in close proximity to the feeding-grounds of the bass, and the angler should keep as still as possible. Contrary to the popular opinion, fish hear sounds, not only those made in the water, but those in the air as well, otherwise they would not be provided with so delicate an auditory apparatus; because they do not always notice sounds made in the air is no proof that they do not hear them. The suggestions already made as to the hooking and playing and landing the bass apply to still-fishing as well. The minnow is best hooked through both lips, but if they are very small, they may be hooked just under the dorsal fin.

THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS

(Micropterus salmoides)

The large-mouth black-bass was also first described by the French ichthyologist Lacépéde, in 1802, from a drawing and description sent to him from South Carolina by M. Bosc, under the local name of "trout-perch." Owing to the vernacular name, he gave it the specific name of salmoides, "salmon-like" or "trout-like." Thirty years before, pressed skins of the large-mouth bass had been sent to Linnæus by Dr. Garden from Charleston. South Carolina, under the name of "freshwater trout," but Linnæus failed to describe or name it. The black-bass is called "trout" to this day in the Southern states.

The large-mouth black-bass is very similar in appearance to the small-mouth bass. It is not quite so trimly built, being somewhat more "stocky" and robust. Its mouth is larger, the angle reaching behind the eye. It has larger scales, and those on the cheeks are not much smaller than those on the body, while in the small-mouth bass the cheek scales are very small compared with its body scales. The large-mouth is more muscular, and has a broader and more powerful tail.

Its distribution is perhaps wider than that of any other game-fish, its range extending from Canada to Florida and Mexico, and, through transplantation, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It has also been introduced into Germany. France, Russia, and the Netherlands, where it is greatly esteemed both as a game-fish and food-fish.

The coloration of the large-mouth bass is often of the same hue as the small-mouth bass, though usually it is not so dark, being mostly bronze-green, fading to white on the belly. When markings are present, they tend to form longitudinal streaks of aggregated spots, and not vertical ones, as in the small-mouth.