Part 1

Chapter 13,712 wordsPublic domain

Transcriber's note:

Italics is represented with _underscore_, small caps with ALL CAPS..

A list of corrections made can be found at the end of the text.

FAVORITE FISH AND FISHING

BY JAMES A. HENSHALL, M.D.

Author of "Book of the Black Bass," "Camping and Cruising in Florida," "Ye Gods and Little Fishes," "Bass, Pike, Perch and Others."

"_And yf the angler take fysshe: surely thenne is there noo man merier than he is in his spyryte._"

--Dame Juliana Berners.

NEW YORK THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY MCMVIII

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England _All Rights Reserved_

To THE MEMORY of JUDGE NICHOLAS LONGWORTH

My Friend and Companion On Many Outings by FLOOD AND FIELD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is based on articles originally published in _The Outing Magazine_, _Country Life in America_, _Shooting and Fishing_, _London Fishing Gazette_ and _The American Fishculturist_. My thanks and acknowledgments are hereby tendered to the publishers of those journals for permission to embody the articles in book form. For this purpose they have been added to, amplified and extended. For the illustrations of fishes I am indebted to the United States Bureau of Fisheries, Mr. Sherman F. Denton and Dr. Frank M. Johnson.

JAMES ALEXANDER HENSHALL. BOZEMAN, Montana.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE BLACK BASS: THE GAME-FISH OF THE PEOPLE 3 THE GRAYLING: THE FLOWER OF FISHES 43 THE TROUT: THE ANGLER'S PRIDE 65 HIS MAJESTY: THE SILVER KING 121 FLORIDA FISH AND FISHING 141

ILLUSTRATIONS

Grayling Fishing on West Fork of Madison River, Montana _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

Black Bass Returning to Water After Leaping 4 Large Mouth Black Bass 8 Small Mouth Black Bass 12 Black Bass Returning to Water After Leap 32 Michigan Grayling 46 Arctic Grayling 50 Montana Grayling 54 English Grayling 60 Brook Trout 66 Red Throat, or Cut-Throat Trout 72 Steelhead Trout 80 Rainbow Trout 88 Dolly Varden Trout 94 Brown Trout 100 Golden Trout of Volcano Creek 106 Sunapee Trout 114 Tarpon 128 Sheepshead 142 Cavalla 144 Sea Trout 146 Spanish Mackerel 148 Kingfish 150 Cero 150 Redfish; Channel Bass 154 Red Grouper 156 Mangrove Snapper 158 Ten Pounder 160 Ladyfish 160 Snook; Rovallia 164 Jewfish 166 Shark Sucker 168 Enlarged View of Sucking Disk 168 Florida Barracuda 172 Northern Barracuda 172 Manatee 176 Devil Fish 178

THE BLACK BASS: THE GAME FISH OF THE PEOPLE

Favorite Fish & Fishing

THE BLACK BASS: THE GAME FISH OF THE PEOPLE

[Sidenote: Parlous Times in Angling]

These be parlous times in angling. When William King, in the seventeenth century, with as much prophecy as humor, wrote:

"His hook he baited with a dragon's tail And sat upon a rock and bobbed for whale,"

he builded better than he knew. And if Job had lived in the twentieth century, the query: "Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook?" would be answered in the affirmative; also, it would be demonstrated that "He maketh the deep to boil like a pot," at Fort Myers and Catalina.

The shades of Walton and Cotton, of Sir Humphrey Davy and "Christopher North," and of our own Dr. Bethune and Thaddeus Norris, could they "revisit the glimpses of the moon," would view with wonder and silent sorrow the tendency of many anglers of the present day toward strenuosity, abandoning the verdure-clad stream, with its warbling birds and fragrant blossoms, for the hissing steam launch and vile-smelling motor boat in pursuit of leaping tuna and silver king. It goes without saying, however, that considered as a sport, fishing for these jumbos is highly exciting and capable of infusing unbounded enthusiasm, but it can hardly be called angling.

[Sidenote: The Ethics of Sport]

In the ethics of sport it may be questioned if there is not more real pleasure, and at the same time a manifestation of a higher plane of sportsmanship, in the pursuit of woodcock, snipe, quail or grouse with well-trained bird-dogs, than in still-hunting moose, elk or deer. In the former case the bird is flushed and given a chance for life, while in the latter case the quarry is killed "as an ox goeth to the slaughter."

So in fishing a like comparison is possible--fly-fishing for salmon, black bass, trout, or grayling as against fishing for tarpon and tuna, which are worthless when killed except as food for sharks. In the first case the angler's skill, and his knowledge of its habits, are pitted against the wiles of the fish, with but a weak and slender snell of silkworm fiber between its capture or escape, while in the case of the leviathans mentioned, they are handicapped by being hooked in the gullet, and by towing a boat in their struggle for freedom. But comparisons are always odious. While the choice between the "gentle" art and strenuous fishing is certainly a question of taste, it may depend somewhat on the length of one's purse.

[Sidenote: Black Bass Fishing]

Black-bass fishing! These are words to conjure with. What pleasurable emotions they call up! To the superannuated angler the words are fraught with retrospective reflections of the keenest enjoyment, while they cause the soul of the new hand to become obsessed with pleasures yet to come--pleasures rendered brighter by the rosy tint of anticipation.

[Sidenote: The Love of Angling]

With the first blossoms of spring the thoughts of many men, both old and young, turn lightly to love--the love of angling. And as the leaves unfold, and the birds begin their wooing, and the streams become clear, the premonitory symptoms of the affection are manifested in a rummaging of drawers and lockers for fly-books and tackle boxes, and the critical examination of rods and reels, and in the testing of lines and leaders. These preliminaries are the inevitable harbingers of the advent of the angling season, when black bass are leaping gayly from the waters after their enforced hibernation in the gloom and seclusion of the deep pools.

And when the encroachment of age or rheumatism forbids wading the stream, one can still sit in a boat on a quiet lake and enjoy to the full the delight and fascination of "bass fishing." What farmer's boy in the Middle West does not look forward to a Saturday when the ground is too wet to plow or plant, when he can repair to the creek or pond with his rude tackle and realize his fond dreams of fishing for black bass! And when such a day arrives, as it is sure to do, how he hurries through the chores, and with what sanguine hope he digs for angle-worms in the garden, or nets crawfish or minnows in the brook, each one good for at least one "sockdolager" of a bass. For it sometimes happens that a bass will take a wriggling earth-worm or a "soft craw" when it will not deign to notice the choicest minnow or the most cunningly devised artificial fly.

[Sidenote: Youthful Ambition]

And the country lad always knows just where an old "whopper" of a bronze-back black bass has his lair beneath the roots of a big tree, or under the ledge of a moss-grown rock. To do future battle with such an one has engrossed his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, ever since the Christmas tree for him bore such fruit as a linen line, a red and green float and a dozen fishhooks.

[Sidenote: "A Riband in the Cap of Youth"]

The triumphal march of a Roman warrior, with captives chained to his chariot wheels, entering the gates of the Eternal City with a blare of trumpets and the applause of the multitude, was an event to fill his soul with just pride--but it descends to the level of vainglory and mediocrity when compared with the swelling heart of the lad as he enters the farmhouse kitchen with two or three old "lunkers" of black bass strung on a willow withe. Many times during his homeward march had he halted to admire the scale armor and spiny crests of his captive knights!

And then to an appreciative audience he relates, in a graphic manner, how this one seized a minnow, and that one a crawfish, and the other one a hellgramite--and how often each one leaped from the water, and how high it jumped--and how the "ellum" rod bent and twisted as the large one tried to regain the hole under the big rock--and how the good line cut the water in curving reaches and straight lines as another one forged toward the sunken roots of the old sycamore. And then came the climax, as, with pride and regret struggling for mastery, and "suiting the action to the word and the word to the action," he tells again the old, old story of how the biggest of all, a regular "snolligoster," shook out the hook and got away!

In the years to come, will that lad exult over the capture of a mighty tuna or giant tarpon with as much genuine joy and enthusiasm as over that string of bass? Well, hardly. And as the boy is father to the man, and as we are all but children of larger growth, the black-bass angler never outlives that love and enthusiasm of his younger days--younger only as reckoned by the lapse of years.

[Sidenote: In Olden Time]

Although the black bass, as a game fish, has come into his own only during the last two or three decades, black-bass fishing is older than the Federal Union. The quaint old naturalist, William Bartram, the "grandfather of American ornithology," in 1764, described, minutely, "bobbing" for black bass in Florida, there, as in all the Southern States, called "trout"--a name bestowed by the English colonists owing to its gameness. While black-bass fishing is comparatively a recent sport in the Eastern States, it was practiced in Kentucky, Tennessee and southern Ohio before the end of the eighteenth century. In 1805 George Snyder, the inventor of the Kentucky reel, was president of the Bourbon County Angling Club at Paris, Kentucky. Fly-fishing was practiced as early as 1840 on the Elkhorn and Kentucky rivers by Mr. J. L. Sage and others. His click reel, made by himself, is now in my possession; and George Snyder's own reel, made in 1810, a small brass multiplying reel running on garnet jewels, is still in the possession of his grandson at Louisville.

[Sidenote: Appearance and Habits]

The black bass is now an acknowledged peer among game fishes, and taking him by and large excels them all, weight for weight. The generic term black bass, as here used, includes both the large-mouth bass and the small-mouth bass. The two species are as much alike as two peas in a pod, the most striking difference between them being that one has a larger mouth and larger scales than the other. When subject to the same conditions and environment, they are equal in game qualities. The habits of the two species are similar, though the large-mouth bass is more at home in ponds and weedy waters than the small-mouth bass, which prefers running streams and clear lakes. Their natural food is crawfish, for which their wide mouths and brush-like teeth are well adapted, though they do not object to an occasional minnow or small frog.

[Sidenote: Now and Then]

Owing to the wide distribution of black bass, fishing for it is universal. It is no less enjoyed by the rustic youth with peeled sapling rod and crawfish bait than by the artistic angler with slender wand and fairy-like flies. While black-bass fishing was known and practiced in the Ohio Valley from the earliest years of the nineteenth century, as just stated, our angling books for three-fourths of the century contained but little, if anything, about the black bass, as they were mostly compilations from English authors. The only exception were the books of Robert B. Roosevelt, an uncle of the President, who fished for black bass in Canada about 1860. At the present day there are more articles of fishing tackle made especially for black bass than for all other game fishes combined. This is proof that it is the most popular and, all things considered, the best game fish of America.

[Sidenote: The Charm of Angling]

Salmon fishing, the grandest sport in the curriculum of angling, is now an expensive luxury. There is but little free water readily accessible, for all the best pools are in the possession of wealthy clubs. The bold leap of the salmon, when hooked, the exciting play of the fish on the rod, and the successful gaffing, are as so many stanzas of an epic poem. Trout fishing is a summer idyl. The angler wades the merry stream while the leaves whisper and rustle overhead, the birds chirp and sing, the insects drone and hum, the cool breeze fans his cheek, as he casts his feathery lures, hither and yon, in eager expectation of a rise.

Black-bass fishing combines, in a measure, the heroic potentialities of salmon fishing with the charms of trout fishing. The leap of the bass is no less exciting than that of the salmon, and is oftener repeated, while in stream fishing the pastoral features of trout fishing are experienced and enjoyed.

[Sidenote: The Leap of Fishes]

The leap of a hooked fish is always an exciting episode to the angler with red blood in his veins--exciting because as an offset to its probable capture there is the very possible contingency of its escape by throwing out the hook, or by breaking away. So with each leap of the bass the hopes and fears of the angler are constantly exercised, while his pulses quicken and his enthusiasm is aroused. Game fishes often leap a few inches above the surface in play, or to catch a low-flying insect; but when hooked they vault to a height commensurate with their agility and muscular ability. They do not leap so high, however, as is commonly supposed.

[Sidenote: Vaulting Ambition]

A tarpon will leap six feet high, but the cero, or Florida kingfish, will leap higher, for it is the greatest vaulter of them all. The ladyfish executes a series of short, whirling leaps that puzzle the eye to follow--it is the gamest fish for its size in salt water. The leap of the flying-fish is sustained for a long distance by its wing-like pectoral fins, on the principle of the aëroplane, though its sole motive power is probably derived from its tail before leaving the water. The salt-water mullet is an expert jumper, leaping often in play, but when pursued by an enemy its leaps are higher and longer than would be expected from its size. The brook trout, pike, and mascalonge seldom leap when hooked, though the steelhead trout and grayling both leap nearly as often as the black bass in their efforts to dislodge the hook. The leap of the salmon is a long, graceful curve, as it heads up stream. Once, while playing my first salmon, on the Restigouche, many years ago, my taut line was leading straight down the stream, when I caught sight of a salmon over my shoulder and above me, leaping from the surface, which, to my surprise, proved to be my hooked fish--the line making a long detour in the swift water.

[Sidenote: Leap of the Black Bass]

I have heard many anglers declare that a black bass could leap five feet high, when as a matter of fact they leap but a few inches, usually, and occasionally one, or at most three feet, though I think two feet nearer the limit. By an examination of Mr. A. Radcliffe Dugmore's photograph, reproduced herewith, it will readily be seen that the leaps are not very high ones. A black bass is in the air but a second or two, and to catch him in the act as Mr. Dugmore has done must be considered a wonderful achievement. The picture shows the bass returning to the water, with either the head or the shoulders at, or beneath, the surface, while the displaced water at his point of emergence still shows plainly--standing up, as it were. This proves that the bass regains the surface as soon as the displaced water, or rather before the upheaved water finds its level, which could not be the case were the leaps three or four feet high.

[Sidenote: Why the Bass Leaps]

Why does a hooked bass leap from the water? This question is sometimes raised, though the answer is plain. He leaps into the air to endeavor to dislodge the hook; this he tries to do by violently shaking his body, with widely extended jaws. He does not "shake his head," as is often said, for having no flexible neck, his head can only be thrown from side to side by the violent contortions of his body, often using the water as a fulcrum, when he appears to be standing on his tail. A dog or a cat will shake its head vigorously to eject some offending substance from the mouth, and a bass does the same thing; but as he cannot shake his body to the extent required beneath the surface, owing to the resistance of the water, he leaps above it. And if he succeeds in throwing out the hook he disappears beneath the surface and is seen no more; his object in leaping has been accomplished.

Usually, it is only surface-feeding fishes that leap when hooked. Bottom-feeding fishes bore toward the bottom or struggle in mid-water. Every fish has its characteristic way of resisting capture, but any fish is more easily subdued if kept on the surface by the skill of the angler and the use of good and trustworthy tackle.

[Sidenote: Their Way with a Bait]

The manner of taking a bait also varies considerably with different fishes; and the character of their teeth is a good guide to what they feed on. For instance, the cunner and sheepshead are expert bait stealers. With their incisor teeth their habit is to pinch off barnacles and other mollusks from their attachment to rocks and old timbers, and so they nip off the clam or crab bait from the hook with but little disturbance. A trout takes a fly or bait with a vigorous snap, without investigation as to its nature, and a black bass does much the same, giving immediate and unmistakable notice to the angler that there is "something doing."

[Sidenote: Breeding Habits]

The black bass is one of the few fishes that protects its eggs and young. It forms its nest on gravelly or rocky shoals or shallows, usually, but when such situations are not available, clay or mud bottom, or the roots of aquatic plants are utilized, especially by the large-mouth bass. During incubation the eggs are guarded and tended by the parent fish, and hatch in ten days or two weeks, the fry remaining on the nest, guarded by the male fish, for several days, when they disperse to find suitable hiding places, feeding on minute organisms that abound in all natural waters.

[Sidenote: Spawning Season]

The spawning season of the black bass varies considerably, owing to its extensive range and consequent variation in the temperature of waters. In Florida and the extreme South it is as early as March or April, in the Middle West in May or June, and at the northern limit of its distribution as late as July. Owing to this variation, laws to protect the species during the breeding season must vary accordingly. As the brooding fish are easily taken from their nests with snare, jig or spear, the laws for their protection should be rigidly enforced, otherwise a pond or small lake might soon be depleted where the poacher is much in evidence.

[Sidenote: Size and Weight]

The large-mouth bass grows to a maximum weight of six to eight pounds in Northern waters, where it hibernates, but in Florida and the Gulf States, where it is active all the year, it grows much larger, in Florida to twenty pounds in rare cases. The small-mouth bass has a maximum weight of five or six pounds, though several have been recorded of fully ten pounds, from a lake near Glens Falls, N. Y. As usual with most other game fishes, the largest bass, as a rule, are taken with bait. For instance, the heaviest I ever took in Florida on the artificial fly weighed fourteen pounds, and with bait, twenty pounds. In Northern waters the heaviest catch with the fly, of small-mouth bass, seldom exceeds three pounds--usually from one to two pounds, and for large-mouth bass a pound or two more, while with bait larger fish of both species may be taken.

[Sidenote: Season for Fishing]

Owing to the variable conditions mentioned the season for black-bass fishing varies likewise in different sections of the country. Thus, both bait- and fly-fishing are practiced in Florida during winter. In the Middle West--Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Missouri, etc.--bait-fishing is available in the early spring, and fly-fishing as well as bait-fishing in mid-summer and fall. In the Northern States and Canada both bait- and fly-fishing are at their best during late summer and the fall months.

[Sidenote: Distribution]

The original habitats of the black bass, either of one or both species, were the hydrographic basins of the St. Lawrence, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Only the large-mouth existed in the seaboard streams of the South Atlantic and Gulf States. By transplantation the black bass is now a resident of every state in the Union. It will thrive in any water the temperature of which runs up to sixty-five degrees or more in summer. It is one of the best fishes to introduce to new waters where the proper conditions exist, but should never, for obvious reasons, be planted in the same waters with any species of trout.

[Sidenote: Increase in New Waters]

As instances of new waters in which its increase was rapid, the Delaware, Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers may be mentioned. In 1854 thirty small-mouth bass, about six inches long, were taken from a creek near Wheeling, W. Va., and placed in the Potomac near Cumberland, Md. From this small plant the entire river above the Great Falls, and all its tributaries, became well stocked, and has afforded fine fishing for years.

[Sidenote: Commercial Fishing]