Casting the menhaden bait is similar to casting the float and sinker, only the power is enormously increased and deficiencies proportionally magnified. The line is wound up till the bait, if a single one, is almost two feet from the tip, the rod is extended behind the fisherman, who turns his body for the purpose, and then brought forward with a steady but vigorous swing that discharges it without a jerk, like an apple thrown from a stick by rustic youths. The reel is so far restrained by pressure of the thumb that it revolves no faster than the bait travels, but does not in the least detain it, and upon the accuracy of this manipulation mainly depends the result. If too much pressure is used, the line cannot escape rapidly enough and falls short; if too little, the reel overruns and entangles the line, stopping the cast ere half delivered with a jerk that threatens its destruction. The fisherman must be able to use either hand on the reel to rest his arms and to take advantage of the wind.
If he is an adept he will drive the greasy bait straight and true directly to the desired spot, and if the weather is favorable and the fates propitious, he will bring up some scaly monster of twenty-five or mayhap thirty pounds, who will start seaward with bait, and hook, and line, and only be persuaded, after many efforts and determined rushes, that it is in vain. The strong ocean breeze will play with his hair and the salt spume wet his cheek; the vessels, like floating marine monsters, will drift across the waste of waters before him, the seagulls will hover round uttering their harsh cry, and he will cast and cast till arms and legs are weary, and he may kill in a single day a thousand weight of fish. The fresh air will give such a tone to his system, and the exercise such strength to his muscles, and the excitement such vigor to his nerves, that he will hardly believe himself the same relaxed, despondent, listless individual that left the city a week previous.
The most famous localities for the sport are West Island and Point Judith; the former is reached by the way of New London, and the latter by the Connecticut shore line of railway to Kingston. West Island has lately been purchased by a club of gentlemen, but will not probably be reserved exclusively for their use, as the neighboring islands being free to all no special privileges could be secured. There is often great difficulty in obtaining bait, particularly during a storm, which is the time that it is most needed, as the fish bite best in rough weather, and on going from the cities it is well to pack a few hundred menhaden in a box with ice and sawdust, and thus insure a supply for some days ahead.
POINT JUDITH.
It is a long, weary, and dusty ride by the way of the New Haven and Shore Line Railroads to Kingston; but if, at the end of the journey, a pretty little widow, with hazel eyes, is found waiting to drive over to the South Pier in the stage, and you are the only other passenger, you will probably consider yourself repaid for all annoyances.
It is seven miles from Kingston to the South Pier, the driver may happen to be a little tight, very sleepy, and wholly unobservant of what is passing in the back of his vehicle. Moonlight is either reflected with great brilliancy from hazel eyes, or else hazel eyes originate a brilliancy akin to moonlight, and certainly moonlight, hazel eyes, white teeth, rosy lips, soft hands, and a slender waist, are very bewitching in a close carriage of a moonlight night, with a preoccupied driver. Some women have a smile like sunshine, and their laugh rings like a chime of bells; and if you happen to be riding alone with a pretty widow, and something suggests love-making, and her merry laughter slowly dies away into a gentle smile, and the smile fades into a look of sympathetic feeling, that you have to draw very near to see, till you feel her palpitating breath upon your cheek, and her hand trembles when by the merest accident you touch it, and the ride occupies an hour or more, you may, before the South Pier is reached, almost forget that you are married.
If this fortune befalls you at the station, you will probably fail to notice the beauty of Kingston village and Peace Dale as you pass through them, and will find the subsequent lonely ride from South Pier to Point Judith dull and dreary. Some two miles from the Pier is a house kept by John Anthony, the son of Peleg, where sportsmen most do congregate, and where all their reasonable wants, except the wherewithal to quench their thirst, can be supplied, and which is situated within a few steps of the best fishing stations. John Anthony is a Yankee born and bred, honest, faithful, willing, and acquainted with all the habits, devices, and iniquities of bass and blue fish. He will tell you that in May, when the grass plover have their long note, and are heard far up in the air travelling northward, bass are to be caught with the eel-skin; that in June, when high blackberries are in bloom, they begin to take lobster bait; but from July 1st, and all through the fall, they take menhaden, otherwise called bony fish or moss-bunker, the bait that the true and skilful sportsman loves to cast.
In July and August, the largest fish, occasionally bass of fifty and even sixty pounds, rejoice the heart of the angler by surrendering to his skill, while in the Fall, although more numerous, they are smaller. In both these particulars, the fishing at Point Judith and West Island, and further northward, differs from that in the vicinity of New York. Great success, however, depends upon several contingencies. It is supposed that the Gulf Stream, that prolonged current of the Mississippi River, which sweeps with its warmer temperature through mid ocean carrying a genial atmosphere and fertilizing showers to the otherwise arid shores of France and England, changes its course yearly, approaching our coast and sending its swarms of living creatures among the rocks of Narragansett Bay, or withdrawing so as to leave us desolate and to increase the severity of our winters. We all know that our cold seasons differ greatly in intensity, and bass fishermen know that success in fishing varies equally; but from what cause these results flow, no one can positively say.