The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-06-16
THE BLACK BASS In VT.
Season Opens T0day-The Gamiest
Fish That Swims-FOund in Large
Numbers in the Waters Of This

There is not much music of the
reel in the trout fishing Vermont af-
fords today In a few places like
Averill Lake or Caspian Lake one will
hook a speckled specimen that will
call into play the skill or the fisher
man, but the most of the fishing for
trout is on small streams and in
ponds where a half pound trout is rare
and one weighing a quarter of a
pound is a prize.
But the 18th of June has arrived,
and the law allows fishing for bass,
and the fisherman will find some
thing to stir his blood and send his
pulses leaping. The smallest black
bass the law allows to be kept must
measure ten inches in length, so the
fish that are worth the trouble of TAX
ing will weigh from pound up to
the limit.
The bass is the only game fish in
this country that has a commercial
value. None of the New England fish
cries lin fresh water) yield anything
of commercial value, since the TAX
and the pike, or pike perch, can hard
ly be called a game fish. Few New
England bass reach the market and
their numbers are not enough that any
statistical account is made of them,
but in the country at large the catch
is commercially valuable More than
100000 pounds are sold every year.
1t is very probable that at least as
many more are consumed by sports
men and their friends, so the annual
catch of black bass in the country
must amount to between 100000 and
100000 pounds, or something more
than 1000 tons. Western and South
ern States furnish these fish for the
market and so far as New England
is concerned the black bass is a game
fish alone 1t is, in the opinion OF
some skilled and experienced Usher
men, the gamiest fish that swims, GER
tainly not an easy one to entice to
the hook and a hard fighter when
hooked
Early in the season the bass might
be- easily taken with bare hook, for
it is guarding tbs spawning beds or
vigilantly watching the newly Matched
fry. So the season very properly
does not open until June Is. By that
time the bass in the streams have left
the spawning beds and have settled
I'm their summer residences. In the
larger lakes they will not have settled
on their regular feeding grounds I'M
til the middle of July and the best fish
ing is likely to be in August.
When the bass ~ guarding the
spawning bed it exercises unusual
vigilance, setting an example which
other fishes might we'll follow but do
not. The female stands guard some
distance away while the male hovers
over the bed, gently tanning with
it's fins to keep any particles OF dirt
from falling on the eggs, and if any
substance too large to be famed
away drops on the bed he picks it up
in his mouth and swims away with
it. 1t is easy to understand, there
fore, why a bass may be caught early
in the season by dropping bare hook
on the spawning bed.
When the young are Matched the old
bass guards them with great care for
some time, but that parental affec-
ton, so strongly manifested in the
early stages of the life of the fry. does
not prevent the parents from preylng
on the smaller fish when once they
have been released from parental
guardianship.
Though the original habitat of the
bass appears to have been somewhat
restricted, they are now common
throughout the country, having been
introduced to waters in which they
were not originally found and thriv-
en- there.
Every summer resort advertises
good bass fishing if bass has been
caught within a dozen miles in a dozen
en- years and such advertisements are
never reliable. There is no place
known, no matter how plentiful the
fish may be, where a man may go
and be sure of a good catch. The
bass is a more capricious fish than
the trout and makes larger demands
on the skill of the fisherman.
Vermont affords as good bass fish
ing as any New England State. The
Great Back Bay of Lake Champlain
is the equal of the Belgrade Lakes
of Maine, and close by Montpelier
is as good fishing as one need ask
for The largest bass are caught in
Lake Champlain, and though nothing
has ever been done toward stocking
that water the supply of bass remains
plentiful, and now that SEEMING is
prohibited the supply ought to in
crease.
The Winooski River is well stocked
with bass Good fish, some weighing
as much as four pounds, have been
taken near North Montpelier. The
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