Superior Fishing / Or, the Striped Bass, Trout, and Black Bass of the Northern States

by Robert Barnwell Roosevelt

The black bass, a fish that, from its abundance in their country, Americans may claim as peculiarly their own; a fish that is inferior only to the salmon and trout, if even to the latter; that requires the best of tackle and skill in its inveiglement, and exhibits courage and game qualities of the highest order—fairly swarms in the upper central portion of North America.

In all the lakes, large and small, that dimple the rugged surface of Canada; in the sheets of pure water embosomed in the gentle swells of the western prairies; in those inland seas that are enveloped by our extensive territory; and in the numerous rivers of the west—the black bass is found by his ardent admirers.

From the confines of Labrador, throughout the Canadas, in British America, the Western States, and far beyond the Mississippi, there is scarcely a stretch of water, whether it be the rapids of the St. Lawrence, the sluggish bays of Lakes Ontario and Erie, the cold depths of Huron and Superior, or the lakelets of the interior, that does not abound with this splendid fish.

In dull weedy bays he becomes lazy, ugly, and ill-flavored; but in cold or rapid water, or upon stony bottom, he acquires a vigor of body and excellence of flavor that place him in the first rank of piscatorial prizes.

Although not abundant, if even indigenous in the Middle States, he has been extensively introduced; and finding many of the clear, transparent, rocky, eastern ponds admirably adapted to his health and propagation, he is populating waters that have heretofore produced little besides perch and sun-fish. By a fortunate provision of nature, most ponds that are not suited to trout are favorable to black bass; and being a hardy fish, able to endure long journeys, he is readily transported from place to place. The time will soon come when the worthless yellow perch will be supplanted by his noble congener.

He has been imported even into that semi-detached point of New England, Cape Cod, and thrives wonderfully in Lake Mahopac, adding much to the attractions of that favorite watering-place of fashion-jaded New Yorkers, and is being generally distributed among his eastern friends. If not exposed to a hot sun, he may be carried a long distance out of water, and will often revive when apparently the last spark of vitality is extinct. But his natural home is north and west of the Middle and Eastern States; there his name is legion, his fame deservedly great, and he may be almost said to be the one game fish.

It is true that among epicures the famous white fish of Lakes Huron and Superior, which is also found in a more flabby condition in Erie and Ontario, ranks before either the black bass or the pike-perch; but as he is deceived by neither decoy nor bait, he is not worthy of the fisherman’s regard. To be tasted in perfection, the white fish must be eaten fresh from the rapids of Lake Superior, where, lying in the eddy below some immovable rock, he is taken by the sharp-eyed Indian in the long-handled net from out the foaming water, brought immediately to land, cooked and placed steaming hot upon the table before he has lost the delicious freshness of his native element.

The black bass, however, is in the west what the trout is in our eastern brooks—the principal source of the angler’s enjoyment.

The rivers that empty into Hudson’s Bay are ascended by the migratory salmon, but from their peculiar character do not furnish fly-fishing except for trout. The latter are found in Lake Superior and the streams that empty into it, in the tributaries of the Upper Mississippi, and in the brooks of the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains; but are not generally distributed through the weedy streams of the Western States.

The flat expanse of Ohio is not favorable to the existence of that lover of the noisy brook and tumbling torrent; and streams flowing through marl deposits are supposed not to furnish proper food; so that the beauty that we in our eastern homes entice from every stream or brooklet from Maine to Pennsylvania, is found rarely, if at all, in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, western Kentucky, and southern Wisconsin; but in the cool depths of Lake Superior and its amber-hued tributaries he absolutely swarms.