Largemouth Bass Strength

Largemouth Bass strength and power.

Largemouth Bass Strength

The black bass is endowed with strength, for its size, beyond that of most freshwater fishes ; more over it seems to possess the intelligence (or an acute development of instinct) to use its strength to the best advantage in its efforts to escape from the rod, to throw the hook from its mouth, or to sever the gut of the leader by getting it around jagged and sunken rocks.  Frequently it will sink sul lenly, as it were to the bottom, and nothing will dislodge it except main strength and the utmost strain of the tackle by which it is held in restraint.  All the devices of an old salmon-angler will not budge it from its lair: the throwing of stones, lashing of the water, knocking on the butt of the rod, even the jabbing of a stick at him unseen in a pool (but doubtless not touching his body), have failed, as have all other attempts, to make him move an inch.  Nothing but a steady strain sufficient to overcome his strength of muscle will have any effect, and frequently even that will be only tem porary, as under such conditions the bass will some times move but a few feet and then " sulk " again.  So persistent and determined is this action of the fish, that one would be inclined to think that he evidently braced his strong pectoral fins on the sides of two stones between which he was " sulking," a term insulting to the majesty of the fish in his intelligence of resources to escape capture.

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