The pectoral fins have sixteen rays, the ventrals one spinous and five soft rays, the anal three spinous and eleven soft rays, the first dorsal nine spinous, the second one spinous and twelve soft, the caudal seventeen soft rays.
The Sea Bass, which is of the same order and family, Pereidæ, is purely a sea fish, never entering estuaries or rivers, and never being taken in other than salt waters, on the outer bars and sea-banks, whereas the Striped Bass, like the Salmon, though salt water is necessary to him, in order to give vigor to his constitution, and perhaps to enable him to reproduce his species, is taken without distinction in the clear cold spring-waters of the river-heads, in the brackish slack-waters of the broad estuaries, in the strong, whirling salt eddies of sea-channels, such as Hellgate, and the inlets from the ocean to the inner bays, and lastly in the tumbling and flashing surfs on all the outer beaches, from those, I believe, of Hatterns, alone all the coasts north-eastward to those of Jersey and Long Island; on which they are taken with the squid and the seine from July to November, of rare excellence, and in great abundance.
The river runs of the Striped Bass are very singular, and though I will not say unaccountable—by no means accounted for. So soon as the Smelt, Shad, and Herring enter the river-mouths and estuaries, the Striped Bass is found following them; and in every different water it appears that he acts on a peculiar and instinctive principle. Where, when, or how he spawns no man knows or has written.
Our rivers he enters from the Delaware eastward from the first of March and later as the season offers, and makes up to the clear, cool spring-waters of the rivers near their heads. At that time he may be fished for, in the Delaware and in all the rivers in which the Shad run up and spawn, with shad-roe FATALLY.
In waters up which the Shad does not run this bait is useless.
Thus, for instance, at Macomb’s Dam, Kingsbridge, and all the Harlæm River and Hellgate, in the neighborhood of New York, shad-roe is useless; because the Shad do not spawn there, and the Bass know it. While in the Passaic, at Belleville Bridge and Acquanonck, up to both which places these fish run, there is a certainty of taking them with this bait, because Shad do spawn in the Passaic.
Therefore, in all rivers up which Shad run, the true and best bait for the Striped Bass is the shad-roe.
This must be prepared thus. The roe of the female fish—that is the hard roe—must be taken, cleaned, washed, and washed again, and then potted down with two ounces of salt to every half pound of roe, pressed close into a stone pot and hermetically sealed. After three months it will be fit for use; when it must be cut out of the pot like cheese, fastened on the hook in a small lump, and tied to it by a lapping of light-colored floss silk, or raveled hemp.
At this same time, in tideways such as Hellgate and the like, crab is the best and most killing bait on a line by rod and reel fishing, with weight enough to keep your crab within three inches of the bottom; thus you shall take abundance of moderate sized fishes—the best by all odds on the table—but if you aim at the thirty and forty pounders, you must take that hideous and disgusting fishy reptile, the real squid, armed with a strong cod-hook, on a heavy hempen line, trolled from the stern of a boat slowly pulled against stream.
The Bass will strike at a gaudy fly, or a spun minnow, at the latter every where, at the first seldom, and I believe casually; though if you do hook him look out, for he shall try your line, and strain your tackle to the utmost, and if you land even a three pounder on a single gut with fly or minnow trolled, you have done great work.