CHAPTER XX.

THE BLACK BASS AS A GAME FISH.

"He is a fish that lurks close all winter; but is very pleasant and jolly after mid-April, and in May, and in the hot months."-IZAAK WALTON.

THOSE who have tasted the lotus of Salmon, or Trout fishing, in that Utopian clime of far away-while reveling in its æsthetic atmosphere, and surrounded by a misty halo of spray from the waterfall, or enveloped by the filmy gauze and iridescent haze of the cascade-have inscribed tomes, sang idyls, chanted pæans, and poured out libations in honor and praise of the silver-spangled Salmon, or the ruby-studded Trout, while it is left to the vulgar horde of Black Bass anglers to stand upon the mountain of their own doubt and presumption, and, with uplifted hands, in admiration and awe, gaze with dazed eyes from afar upon that forbidden land—that terra incognita-and then, having lived in vain, die and leave no sign.

It is, then, with a spirit of rank heresy in my heart; with smoked glass spectacles on my nose, to dim the glare and glamour of the transcendent shore; with the scales of justice across my shoulder—M. salmoides in one scoop and M. dolomieu in the other-I pass the barriers and confines of the enchanted land, and toss them into a stream that has been depopulated of even fingerlings, by the dilettanti (377)

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of Salmon and Trout fishers; for I would not, even here, put Black Bass in a stream inhabited by Salmon or Brook Trout.

While watching the plebeian interlopers sporting in an eddy, their bristling spines and emerald sides gleaming in the sunshine, I hear an awful voice from the adjacent rocks exclaiming: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!" Shade of Izaak Walton defend us! While appealing to Father Izaak for protection, I quote his words: "Of which, if thou be a severe, sour complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge."

Seriously, most of our notions of game fish and fishing are derived from British writers; and as the Salmon and the Trout are the only fishes in Great Britain worthy of being called game, they, of course, form the themes of British writers on game fish. Americans, following the lead of our British cousins in this, as we were wont to do in all sporting matters, have eulogized the Salmon and Brook Trout as the game fish par excellence of America, ignoring other fish equally worthy.

While some claim for the Striped Bass a high place in the list of game fish, I feel free to assert, that, were the Black Bass a native of Great Britain, he would rank fully as high, in the estimation of British anglers, as either the Trout or the Salmon. I am borne out in this by the opinions of British sportsmen, whose statements have been received without question.

W. H. Herbert (Frank Forester) writing of the Black Bass, says: "This is one of the finest of the American fresh water fishes; it is surpassed by none in boldness of biting, in fierce and violent resistance when hooked, and by a very few only in excellence upon the board."

Parker Gilmore ("Ubique") says: "I fear it will be almost deemed heresy to place this fish (Black Bass) on a par with the Trout; at least, some such idea I had when I first heard the two compared; but I am bold, and will go further. I consider he is the superior of the two, for he is equally good as an article of food, and much stronger and untiring in his efforts to escape when hooked."

In a recent issue of the London "Fishing Gazette" (England), Mr. Silk advertises: "Black Bass (Grystes nigricans), the gamest of American fish. 300 for sale (just arrived), length from 3 to 5 inches; 6 months old. Price, 10s. ($2.25) each."

Now, while Salmon fishing is, unquestionably, the highest branch of piscatorial sport; and while Trout fishing in Canada, Maine, and the Lake Superior region justifies all the extravagant praise bestowed upon it, I am inclined to doubt the judgment and good taste of those anglers who snap their fingers in contempt of Black Bass fishing, while they will wade a stream strewn with brush and logs, catch a few Trout weighing six or eight to the pound, and call it the only artistic angling in the world! While they are certainly welcome to their opinion, I think their zeal is worthy of a better cause.

The Black Bass is eminently an American fish, and has been said to be representative in his characteristics. He has the faculty of asserting himself and making himself completely at home wherever placed. He is plucky, game, brave and unyielding to the last when hooked. He has the arrowy rush and vigor of the Trout, the untiring strength and bold leap of the Salmon, while he has a system of fighting tactics peculiarly his own.

He will rise to the artificial fly as readily as the Salmon or the Brook Trout, under the same conditions; and will take the live minnow, or other live bait, under any and all circumstances favorable to the taking of any other fish. I consider him, inch for inch and pound for pound, the gamest fish that swims. The royal Salmon and the lordly Trout must yield the palm to a Black Bass of equal weight.

That he will eventually become the leading game fish of America is my oft-expressed opinion and firm belief. This result, I think, is inevitable; if for no other reasons, from a force of circumstances occasioned by climatic conditions and the operation of immutable natural laws, such as the gradual drying up, and dwindling away of the small Trout streams, and the consequent decrease of Brook Trout, both in quality and quantity; and by the introduction of predatory fish in waters where the Trout still exists.

Another prominent cause of the decline and fall of the Brook Trout, is the erection of dams, saw-mills and factories upon Trout streams, which, though to be deplored, can not be prevented; the march of empire and the progress of civilization can not be stayed by the honest, though powerless, protests of anglers.

But, while the ultimate fate of the Brook Trout is sealed beyond peradventure, we have the satisfaction of knowing, that, in the Black Bass we have a fish equally worthy, both as to game and edible qualities, and which, at the same time, is able to withstand, and defy, many of the causes that will, in the end, effect the annihilation and extinction of the Brook Trout.

Mr. Charles Hallock, the well-known author, angler, and journalist, says:

No doubt the Bass is the appointed successor of the Trout: not through heritage, nor selection, nor by interloping, but by foreordination. Truly, it is sad to contemplate, in the not distant future, the extinction of a beautiful race of creatures, whose attributes have been sung by all the poets; but we regard the inevitable with the same calm philosophy with which the astronomer watches the burning out of a world, knowing that it will be succeeded by a new creation.

As we mark the soft vari-tinted flush of the Trout disappear in the eventide, behold the sparkle of the coming Bass as he leaps into the morning of his glory! We hardly know which to admire the most-the velvet livery and the charming graces of the departing courtier, or the flash of the armor-plates on the advancing warrior. No doubt the Bass will prove himself a worthy substitute for his predecessor, and a candidate for a full legacy of honors.

No doubt, when every one of the older States shall become as densely settled as Great Britain itself, and all the rural aspects of the crowded domain resemble the suburban surroundings of our Boston; when every feature of the pastoral landscape shall wear the finished appearance of European lands; and every verdant field be closely cropped by lawn-mowers and guarded by hedges; and every purling stream which meanders through it has its waterbailiff, we shall still have speckled Trout from which the radiant spots have faded, and tasteless fish, to catch at a dollar per pound (as we already have on Long Island), and all the appurtenances and appointments of a genuine English Trouting privilege and a genuine English "outing."

In those future days, not long hence to come, some venerable piscator, in whose memory still lingers the joy of fishing, the brawling stream which tumbled over the rocks in the tangled wildwood, and moistened the arbutus and the bunchberries which garnished its banks, will totter forth to the velvety edge of some peacefullyflowing stream, and having seated himself on a convenient point in a revolving easy chair, placed there by his careful attendant, cast right and left for the semblance of sport long dead.

Hosts of liver-fed fish will rush to the signal for their early morning meal, and from the center of the boil which follows the fall of the handsful thrown in, my piscator of the ancient days will hook a