This fish has innumerable scientific names, while it can scarcely be said to have any distinctive popular one. Bass, either alone or with some additional appellation, is applied by common usage to almost the entire perch family, one of the largest among the American fishes, while scientific men are at as great a loss for appropriate nomenclature or accurate distinctions. There are probably several species classed under the same name as this fish, and itself differs greatly in color and appearance, according to its food, water or locality. There is no doubt that all fish, and more especially trout, change their hues according to the color of the water they inhabit, or even to the light or shade of their favorite haunts. It is supposed that they assimilate to the bottom where they are found, a provision of nature to protect them from their enemies of the air. Unquestionably the same species present a very different appearance in clear, limpid streams, and in muddy, sluggish brooks. Black Bass are said to possess of themselves the power to change their color at will, and have been known to do so repeatedly when confined in a vessel of water. They are found to have black, green and yellow sides, according to circumstances, and often within a short distance of one another, though their backs are generally dusky black.
The gill-cover has two flat points, the teeth are minute, while the back fin, though single, is partly divided into two. It contains ten hard and fourteen soft rays; the pectoral has eighteen soft rays, the ventral six, the first one almost spinous, the anal three spines, the first very short, and twelve soft rays, and the tail sixteen soft rays. This fish has been confounded with the Lake Huron Black Bass, Huro nigricans, which is now supposed to be a different variety, characterized by two longitudinal lines or stripes running the entire length of its body.
The gill-rays are six and the fin-rays, as given by Dr. De Kay, are as follows, but I think liable to considerable variation.
D. 9.1.14; P. 18; V. 5; A. 3.12; C. 16-6/6.
Black Bass, belonging as they do to the perch family, have many of the habits and can be captured in the same manner as their congeners. But, as they are infinitely superior in flavor, they are equally so in game and sporting qualities. They will take minnows, shiners, grasshoppers, frogs, worms, or almost anything else that can be called a bait, and like all fish, prefer the live to the dead. They may be fished for with good stout tackle, gut leaders, a reel, and an ordinary bass rod, in the same manner as fish are generally captured by boys and blockheads. In June they affect the grassy bottom in water fifteen to twenty feet deep, but as the season advances they resort to the rocky shoals and rapid currents, where they are taken on and after the middle of July by sportsmen with the fly. They may be captured by casting the fly as for salmon or trout, and this is by far the most sportsmanlike way, but the most destructive and usually resorted to is trolling. For casting, a two-handed seventeen foot salmon, rod is preferable, while for trolling, a short bass rod is the thing. By anchoring your boat to the windward of a shoal, or by walking out on some point of rocks, you can command a great extent of water with your fly-rod, and have royal sport alone, whereas for trolling an oarsman is indispensable.
The flies to be used are the ordinary small-sized salmon flies, not too gaudy, though the first dropper and tail fly may be larger and made of white and ibis feathers mixed. In casting you will use your ordinary cast, but in trolling you may attach five or six flies to a long salmon leader at equal distances, and will frequently take several fish at a time. My experience has convinced me that a number of flies attract fish, whether trout or bass, and the more you can conveniently use the greater will be your success.
Black bass abound in the northern waters, where they are invariably trolled for with two rods, one on each side of the boat, in the same manner as in taking pickerel, but two rods are a great additional trouble, for when a fish strikes one the other has to be reeled up by your boatman, lest the hooks sink to the bottom. If the boat is kept in motion, it is almost impossible to reel in a large bass, and would make a labor of a pleasure, even if he should be eventually captured.
A small trolling spoon is excellent bait, probably preferable to the fly at all seasons except the middle of July, when the eel-fly, the principal food of the bass, is just disappearing, and the artificial fly is then a luxury. In case a spoon is used, the shank of the hook is usually wound with ibis feathers, and a Buel’s patent is the favorite. It has been recommended at times to fasten a forked piece of pickerel tongue on the bend of your fly-hook, but like a similar direction as to a worm on a trout fly-hook, I have no faith in it. Another successful bait that has, in my opinion, more reputation than value, is the kill-devil, a creature that is beyond my powers of description, and must be seen to be appreciated.
The hours and days favorable for fishing are, in the main, similar for all fish; if the water is deep or turbid there may be an exception, but generally a southwesterly wind, a cloudy sky, and the morning and evening hours, will yield the best sport. This is so for black bass, and the more wind the better, until it becomes difficult to row and manage the boat. In the western wilds, where deer are plentiful, an attractive fly is made by tying a white and red tuft of deer’s hair along the shank of the hook; the thread being passed round the middle of the tuft, allows the upper part of the hairs to be bent back by the motion through the water, giving an appearance of life to the bait.
An ingenious mode of proceeding is suggested in Brown’s Angler’s Guide, that is worthy of young American genius, to which it is attributed. A boy having caught a sun-fish, runs his hook through its nose and out at its mouth, covering the point with a lively worm. Other sun-fish, seeing their fellow have all to himself a fine, fat worm which he seems unable to master, collect round him, and by their numbers attract the bass, who dashes in among them, and while the rest make off, swallows the one with the worm, and of course himself falls a prey to the ingenious young fisherman. This like the use of cray-fish, mice, swallows, and many other baits, may be excellent, but I have never tried it or them; so long as the fish will take a fly, I fish with nothing else; it is infinitely more exciting to kill one fish on the fly than ten with bait.