THE BOOK OF THE PIKE 



minnow is more attractive. If one is going to watch 

 the hook, the minnow can be hooked through the body- 

 just below the backbone or from the throat up through 

 the head. Where the line is to be left set for any 

 great length of time, I would advise thrusting the hook 

 into the mouth, out through the gills, and back 

 through the body. Some set-line fishermen even wire 

 on the minnow, using very fine spun steel wire. How- 

 ever, I have never resorted to the practice, feeling that 

 the previous method described works well enough. 



At first thought the reader might imagine that the 

 securing of minnows in midwinter would be something 

 of a problem, though they are easily caught by those 

 who know where to look for them. Always they can 

 be taken from open creeks with a dip-net, and spring- 

 fed creeks remain unfrozen even in the coldest of winter 

 weather. Minnows congregate — or, should I say 

 "school"? — where creeks enter a body of water. In 

 midwinter, too, those small members of the fish family 

 gather in great schools of countless thousands, crowd- 

 ing and pushing one another close up inshore. Per- 

 haps they are perishing for want of air; at any rate, 

 that is the usual explanation. I only know that, if the 

 bait seeker cut a hole in the ice, they will literally 

 boil out upon the surface. The taking of a barrel- 

 full of shiner minnows is the work of but a few minutes, 

 a scoop-shovel serving as satisfactorily as a dip-net. 

 Many a fisherman living near a shiner lake lays in a 

 supply of summer live bait long before the spring 

 break-up. There is little difficulty in securing the 

 required minnows, if the winter fisherman knows where 

 to look for them. Some men of my acquaintance, 

 town dwellers, always keep a barrel of minnows in 



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