It is a delightful place in the hot
summer months, with a climate unequalled for healthfulness, a cool
breeze always fanning it from the water, and in the vicinity the best
bass fishing to be found on this continent.
Opposite, and just below the town, is Carlton Island, on which stand
the ruins of an old French fortification, the walls and trenches and
the solitary chimneys, from which the wooden barracks have rotted or
been burned away, remain as melancholy testimonials of the bloody
strifes between the red men of the forest, and the pioneers of
civilization who were driving them from the hunting grounds of
their fathers.
The black bass of the St. Lawrence and Ontario, are the "gamest" fish
that swim, and they are nowhere found in such abundance as in the
neighborhood of Cape Vincent. On the outer edge of the bar, near the
head of Carlton Island, we caught between seventy and eighty in one
afternoon, weighing from three to five pounds each, every one of which
fought like a hero, diving with a plunge for the bottom, skiving with
a rush down, across, or up the river; leaping clear from the water
and shaking his head furiously, to throw the hook loose from his jaw,
before surrendering to his fate. In Wilson's Bay, a sweet place, three
miles from the village by water, or one and a half by land, we caught
as many more on another afternoon.
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