Show FISH IN MINE PITS NOVEL SPORT IN OLD pennsyl VANIA IRON REGION abandoned shafts stocked with small fry now deal sport for Anglers Terrapin also raised for allentown pa perhaps the most peculiar fishing places in the country are found in lehigh county when the failure of jay cooke co of new started a panic which two years later swept over this county it closed every hematite ore mine in lehigh and caused the loss of millions of dollars these abandoned ore mines covering acres of land and ranging in depth from 30 to feet gradually began to fill with water and in that condition the remained for years it was a boy who ali st conceived the idea that these ore mines would be idal breeding places for fish he had read a book on fish culture and he noticed that a particular pit had the kind of aquatic vegetation which the book said was nees sary so he caught a lot of sun fish catfish suckers eels and chubs and dumped them into the waters of the pit and then forgot all about it these fish undisturbed tor several years multiplied with amazing ra several years later a fish erman on his way home from a trout stream happened to pass this particular pit merely as a joke he baited his hooks with worms and made a cast he had scarcely done so when his reel commenced to sing and to bis great amazement he pull ed out two enormous enoi sunfish in side of halt an hour be had filled his creel 1 he made a quiet investigation and readily obtained hcan the owners of the pits to ex pediment peri ment in elsh culture he coin fenced to black bass and yel low perch he genf about secretly and the owners who did not want to be an noyed by applicants for fishing pilvi lieges also kept quiet to day these pits fairly teem with fish i in the shallow lits the same en individual introduced land terrapin which are now bring ing in a substantial revenue some of the lits however aie so danger ous of approach owing to steep overhanging and crumbling banks that only the most daring venture within casting distance at one pit a nearby tree affords a lodging place tor those who enjoy the novelty of fishing from a tree one man has erected a tall scaffolding from which vantage point he cast a heavy weight ed hand line black bass thrive better in these pits than any other fish theli grow to enormous size and the cold ness and purity of the water gives them not only a gameness but a solid ity of flesh which they do not ac quire in the finest bass streams in this state several years ago the owner of a piece of property on which was an abandoned ore pit dumped a lot of bass and pickerel try into the pit just as soon as they grew big enough the latter promptly de strayed the bass but he now hag one of the finest pickerel preserves with the advent of cold weather when the pit will freeze over he ex pacts to make money by leasing fishing privileges |