176 PICKEREL. 
you, take a turn with the hand-line round your leg, and 
stretching yourselves as best you may in the bottom of 
the boat, sleej) comfortably till either a call from your 
oarsman or a tug on your leg rouses you to the dreary 
work of pulling in a worthless, unresisting log. When 
you strike and lose one fish, remain rowing round and 
round ; if he is not much hurt, he will bite again, and 
where there is one there are more ; remain at that spot 
till, by passing over the ground once or twice without a 
strike, you are thoroughly satisfied you have exhausted 
the suj^ply. There is sometimes great beauty of sce- 
nery, and if your guide has anything to say, which 
he rarely has, you can, as you should be able ever to do 
in the open air, enjoy yourself. 
The mode of fishing among the pond lilies that I have 
described is much more exciting, requiring continued 
activity, some skill and no little judgment, while there is 
greater risk of losing your prey. To avoid the latter 
casualty, if the fish weigh not over four pounds, lift him 
out at once, and proceed in the same way with larger 
fish to the extent your rod will stand. As for snap- 
fishing, that is, using a hook so constructed as to spring 
open or shut the moment it feels the bite, and thus 
grasping the fish or imbedding an extra hook in his jaws, 
1 have only tried it sufficiently to be disgusted with it, 
although 23robably it may work well in open water. If, 
however, it touches a weed, it will be sprung, and then 
you cannot catch a fish at all till it is reset. It was 
invented to avoid the hook's coming out of the pickerel's 
mouth, which, from the nature of the latter, it is apt to 
do, a difficulty which old, slow, poky, English punt- 
