These fish resemble the black bass so closely that they are often confounded with them, but they are quite inferior. They inhabit a lower class of waters, prefering ponds and streams with sluggish currents and muddy bottoms. They rarely rise to the fly but will take the trolling spoon voraciously. When hooked, however, they make no play but after one or two feeble rushes come in like a "wet rag." Neither are they so good a table fish as the black bass. They inhabit most of the southern waters of our country being found in vast numbers in the coast lagoons of the southern states, in water that is often quite blackish from the inroads of the sea during high tides. They grow to weigh fifteen pounds quite frequently and sometimes are said to exceed that by as much as five more. In the northern states they rarely exceed five or six pounds.