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Bait Angling for Common Fishes – Chapter XXI

It Is not intended In this chapter to defend anglers against those who assert our favorite pastime is cruel, though most non-anglers do; It is their privilege to be innocent of the true state of things in angling methods. Walton’s well known remark on hooking a frog, “as if you loved him,” is more to the point I wish to make. The angler’s chief attribute should be patience, to tear out a hook bodily from the gullet of a fish is just what Walton wished to be avoided.

Bait Angling for Common Fishes – Chapter XX

The kingfish is perhaps the gamest of bottom feeders that inhabit salt water. All anglers have the best opinion of him, and with one accord, after he is landed, they exclaim: “What a dandy!” Its gamey qualities, its beauty of color and form, as well as its excellent flavor, caused the loyal citizens of New York in colonial days to call this species the kingfish.

Bait Angling for Common Fishes – Chapter XIX

There are about a dozen species of this family, which inhabit the cold and temperate northern seas, but they are most plentiful along the coast of New England and the Middle States. The Eastern smelt grows occasionally to the length of a foot, but average about seven inches, and they appear to associate together in vast schools, somewhat according to size, so that many fishermen contend that there are two kinds.

Bait Angling for Common Fishes – Chapter XVIII

The name Lafayette was given it by the New York fishermen in consequence of its reappearance in large numbers in that region having been coincident with the arrival of Lafayette in this country in 1824. It had been known before that time, but only in scattering numbers.

Bait Angling for Common Fishes – Chapter XVII

This is another plentiful and common sea fish known by many names. In New England It is generally called “scup,” while about New York it is paugy or porgy – both being abbreviated from the Narragansett Indian name, scuppaug. On the Virginia coast it is called the “fair maid.” The porgy is found along our coasts at all seasons of the year, but it is more numerous in June and July.