The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-02
BLACK BASS BY NIGHT.
Lake Keuka Fishermen Have Singular
Way of Catching Them.

Lake Keuka Fishermen Have Singular
Way of Catching Them.
Black bass fishing by night during the
fall is a sport peculiar to Lake Keuka, it
being the belief of the fishermen along
| the lake, which results would seem to
Justify, that the biggest black bass do
their feeding at night during that sea-
son. The bass evidently have peculiar
ideas, too, about what they are willing
to try IN the way of something to eat
at night In fishing for black bass DUR
ing the day the angler on Keuks is par
ticular to have the choicest Of live bait
minnows, crawfish or dobson. Minnows
are the bait most used.
The fisherman drifts slowly in his
boat along the shores, following the
curves of the quiet coves and rounding
the many points that jut into the lake
on both sides. He keeps his line in
about twenty feet of water, and uses no
sinker, or, if any, light one. The bait
must be constantly lively on the hook,
or the bass will not come near it. At
night the fisherman seeks places where
the water IS forty or fifty feet deep. In
stead Of single hook and live bait he
uses gang of at least ten hooks, tied in
pairs an inch apart. They are tied to
strong gut, and are but little larger than
an ordinary trout fly hook. The bait
used is golden sinner, which is caught
in the lake. 1t is hooked to the gang at
the lip and tail, in a curve, so that when
it is trolled through the water the bait
will whirl, the sinner, of course, being
dead. Where the leader, six feet long,
and the line are joined another line is
attached. This is six or eight feet long.
To its pendant end is attached half
pound lead sinker. This is let to the
bottom. The gang and sinner play in
the water the length of the sinker line
above the bottom. This rig is used at
the end of $50 feet of line The boat
drifts or Is rowe ed very slowly.
The black bass that are caught by this
peculiar tackle in the great depth of
water where it is used are always i'm
mense specimens. A catch of twenty
made by Doc Stephens at Bluff Point the
other night weighed sixty-five pounds.
The same rig has been tried time and
again in the day time, but with little
success. Bluff Point, bold promontory
rising more than 800 feet above the lake,
at the junction Of the lake proper and its
west branch, is the favorite locality for
night bass fishing. The shores are rocky
and the water deep.
If a person is rugged and tough, and
likes dash of the weird and uncanny
mingled with his surroundings, he will
enjoy black bass fishing at night on Lake
Keuka. There is a chill in the wind that
disturbs the lakes surface that goes
straight to the marrow. The numbness
of fingers that follows the handling Of a
wet line, and the adjusting anew of a
bait is not calculated to give JOY to the
ordinary angler. The shadows of Bluff
Point are dark, and the front of the bluff
itself rises like a grim specter on the
scene. The cry of the loon, wailing,
demoniacal, blood curdling, sometimes
bursting upon one almost at his side, and
then coming from afar with the chasing
waves, is among the attendant diversions,
and one that does not add much to the
cheerfulness of the surroundings, nor
add zest to the sport. That this novel
way of bass fishing is popular on Lake
Keuka, however, was well testified to the
other night, when no less than fifty boats
were drifting about in the shadows of
Blue Point, each containing from one to
three fishermen. The catch of big bass
chat night ran far UP into the hundreds.
Ordinary everyday black bass fishing,
always excellent on Lake Keuka, was
never better than it is this falI.-Ham-
mondsport Cor. New York Sun.