The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1890-07-04
miscellaneous.
The Season fer Bass.

In black bass fishing, says the Philadelphia
Ledger, the first thing 10 be considered is the
tackle.
This should be chosen with the greatest
care, for the bass is wary fish, carefully
avoiding anything that looks suspicious.
With this end in view the best line to select
is an E oiled or enameled silk, and for bait
fishing a three-foot, and for fly fishing a six
foot gut leader and silk line and both tue
silk line aed gut leader should be of the
very best quality, as the cheaper grades are
very apt to prove treacherous at critical mo-
ments. A multiplying reel, holding about
40 yards of line, is the most convenient, and,
for all practical purposes, quite sufficient.
A medium sized hook, such as one used for
catfishing, it is believed, will attain better re-
suits than one much larger or smaller, the
particular make, whether it be Carlisle,
Limerick, Aberdeen. Sproat, New York trout
or sneck-bend, being absolutely the fancy of
the angler; only, says well-known fisherman,
let the patent contrivances warranted to pre-
vent tue fish from getting away when
hooked severely alone. Fishing for black
bass is contest between brains and cunning
and between science and brute strength. Ii
fish gets away after being hooked, its cum
ming and brute strength were greater than
the anglers science, and deserved his liberty.
All these patent safety hooks are unsports-
manlike and would not be used by true
angler"
Many fishermen in bait fishing use a long
rod :; this is mistake. With stiff rod about
eight feet long bait can be cast nearly
double the distance that can be done by a rod
IL feet long, and is much more convenient to
handle.
The black bass loves a stream that has its
bottoms and shores plentifully studded with
rocks and with moderately deep rocky pools,
in the shadow of which they Turk. ready to dart
forth into SO ne neighboring rifle in pursuit
of food. In selecting place to fish,
therefore have such locality in view, even
though the water be, comparatively speaking,
shallow, rather than deeper SPOT, but to
which the indications point to muddy bot
tom. The pools below dam, for instance,
are nearly always better than the immediate
| vicinity of its breast. In bait casting, unless
the water be very shallow, around the rocks
near the shore should not be neglected, be-
cause such are likely spots for good sized
fish. There is probably no fish SO capricious
as the black bass in the matter of bait, and
no careful fisherman will go in the stream
without helgramites, minnows, crawfish, and
| even big fat earth worms, or any bait TO
which the fish are accustomed.
| In fly fishing, flies having combinations of
green, yellow and black are considered the
best, aud there is no use in casting the fly
anywhere except in rifles or shallow pools
| Just below them. In casting, where it is
! possible, it is claimed that when the f1y is
cast little up stream and allowed to float
! down SO that it be sunk about six inches, the
best results are obtained. Those who have
observed closely say that on the downward
course, and on the first few feet of the re-
trieve, the most strikes are obtained.
| g. l.
been caught thus far this season, there have
been positive assertions made by number of
anglers that there are but few fish in the
streams hereabouts The majority of fisher,
men, however, deny this, and claim that there
were never so many black bass in the waters
of this vicinity as at the present time. Black
bass will rarely take bait when when tue
streams are muddy, and it is also almost use
less to attempt fly fishing in very high water.
| There is also another factor that has rendered
fishing poor thus far, and it lies in the uni
formly cool weather of the past spring. ln
this section black bass usually begin spawn
ing in the latter part of April and finish their
LABOR about the latter part of May. This year,
however, the spawning season on account OF
The cool weather, which kept the water cold,
did not begin until fully three weeks later
and in some cases the bass have not yet fin
ished. During this period the black bass
takes but little food. 1t is true that they are
frequently caught on the spawning beds, but,
it is asserted, that this is not so much on ac-
count of hunger, but because of desire on
the part of the fish to keep the spawning bed
clean or to drive away a supposed intruder
1t is said, in support of this, that black bass
will snap at bare hook dangled over her
spawning bed. Anglers who have made a
study OF the fish claim that as soon as the
spawning season is over and the frequent
rains cease. allowing the water to clear, there
will be magnificent black bass fishing, such as
fishermen OF this CITY have not experienced
tor several years. They predict this from the
fact that the rainy season of last year rem
dered the fishing poor, which was equivalent
to restocking of all the streams hereabouts