TRIBULATIONS OF LIVE-BAIT ANGLERS 121 



time it is fit for work, the minnows have disap- 

 peared. We travel still farther only to find they 

 have scattered; it is scarcely possible to secure 

 a single specimen, each darting away like a flash 

 before the net touches the water. What angler is 

 there, I ask, who has not seen minnows in swarms 

 so thick he could scoop them up easily with his 

 hands at times when he did not require them; and 

 yet when he did, how wofully scarce and hard they 

 were to get ! Again our minds turn to the madden- 

 ing thought, how much easier bass fishing would be 

 if one possessed an artificial minnow. The remem- 

 brance of them lying so quiet on the white cards in 

 the tackle shops is galling in the extreme; to our 

 minds they were more true to nature, and to our 

 thinking more killing than the live ones. Like the 

 frisky frog, when he was captured after such in- 

 finite pains, the vexatious problem loomed darkly 

 as to keeping minnows in fit condition for fishing 

 some miles away. 



We knew (some anglers don't) that the water 

 should be kept at a low temperature or they would 

 soon sink to the bottom or rise to float stiff with 

 a ghastly paleness. Again, those white cards, upon 

 which the beautiful minnows glistened day after 

 day in the sunny window, without changing color ! 



