The News & Observer

WADDELL SAYS RED BREAST.

To the Editor: Certainly you did not realize what you were inviting when you propounded those piscatorial conundrums. If you are not overwhelmed with a vast variety of conflicting opinions on each of them, it will be very surprising. Your questions cover all our waters, salt and fresh, every kind of fishing, and every locality from the great Smoky Mountains to the breezy open sea.

When I was a boy, and infested the banks of the raging Eno, near Hillsborough, (which, by the way, had a greater variety of fish than any stream known to me), I regarded a "yellow belly perch" as a sweet and toothsome dish. I pursued him by every method, including "grabbing" for him under rocks and logs, until I pulled out a water moccasin one day when I concluded to quit that mode. The "yaller belly" was only one of a dozen kinds that swarmed in that stream. A larger experience changed my views and my taste on the subject of fishing, but I have never since enjoyed so much unalloyed happiness in that sport as in those early days.

Now, what is the most delicious fish in North Carolina waters—mountain trout? No, sir, and Sam Ashe went back on his raising when he said so. Mountain trout, I admit, are beautiful enough to be the most delicious, and after you have waded, and slipped and fallen over rocks and stepped in holes for five miles, and caught your line on a thousand twigs and blades of grass and sweated, and used bad words, and allowed a number of the slippery little beauties to get away and finally got back to headquarters tired and hungry with about a dozen, ranging in length from eight to eleven inches, they ought to be delicious.

But, compared with a red breast out of the waters of Sunbury river, the mountain trout, (or any other fresh-water fish for that matter) is almost tasteless. The red breast is, for flavor, for firmness of flesh, and for its fresh-keeping quality, the finest fish in our inland waters, without a doubt.

As to salt-water fish the range of choice is, of course, much larger. The Spanish mackerel, which feeds all along the coast from the mouth of the Cape Fear to New England, is, perhaps, the general favorite. The pompano is rare on our coast, but is the greatest delicacy farther South. The rock-fish, as we call it, is very fine, and the sheep-head is good, as also are the whiting, and black fish, and one or two others. But there is not one of them equal to the pig-fish, when caught between Cape Fear and Cape Lookout. I mention these two localities because they mark the boundaries of the true habitat of that fish. They are found as far North as the Virginia coast, where they are called hog fish, but the peculiar flavor of the Cape Fear pig-fish is lost after he passes Cape Lookout. It is here that he attains perfection, and becomes the most delicious pan-fish known to our waters; and if Sam Ashe will come back here, as he has been promising me to do for a long time, and get another taste of a fresh fried one, he wouldn't recognize a mountain trout as "vittles" any more.

Now, as to the best sort of fishing: The only hand-line fishing fit to indulge in is trolling in a good seaway, with pleasant company. Of course a rod and reel is the best either in fresh or salt water.

As to the best place for fresh water fishing: I should say that, for mountain trout, Caney River, in Yancey county, (Murchison's preserve), is the best, not only for sport, but on account of the magnificent scenery. For other fresh-water fishing I know no better place than the upper water of New River, in Onslow county, and Black River, in Pender, unless it be the White Lake, in Bladen, or Orton pond.

The best place for salt water fishing with a rod and reel, or pole and line, is around the wrecks—melancholy reminders of the daring blockade runners—that lie along the coast, from Wrightsville Beach to Corncake Inlet, and again near the mouth of the river.

The best trolling ground, perhaps, is off Beaufort, and the sharpies are the most comfortable to fish from, especially for ladies.

I am just about to start for Southport, where I anticipate fine sport catching sheephead, pig-fish, etc., and of having some tussles with the big tautog, as I did last summer.

ALFRED MOORE WADDELL.