BAIT CASTING FOR BASS 



absolutely on the dates of the game laws so much as 

 on the individual sense of sportsmanship. A wooden 

 plug with eighteen hooks on it, cast over the bed 

 of a spawning bass, will very quickly put an end to 

 the lives of four or five thousand bass. 



None the less, bait casting for bass, properly prac- 

 ticed, is as ethical as any form of angling, and it is 

 perhaps not only the most scientific form of angling 

 but one of the most scientific forms of sport and 

 one of the most difficult as well. In beauty and in 

 art it does not compare with fly-fishing, but it is far 

 more difficult to learn than fly-fishing. The fly rod 

 is a beautiful tool; the bait rod is a brutal agent of 

 efficiency but before it becomes brutally efficient 

 one needs a certain schooling in its use. 



So many have mastered the art of bait casting, 

 made easy of late years, and so efficient has it be- 

 come in spite of its difficulty, that of late protests 

 begin to be heard against the treble-ganged hook 

 just as we hear protests against the automatic or 

 repeating shotgun ; and there is talk that the one and 

 the other eventually will have legislation passed 

 against them. Sometime there will be modification 

 in the use of these highly developed appliances of 

 destruction but probably not until we have ex- 

 hausted our fish supply yet more. We do not be- 

 lieve either in preparedness for war or prepared- 



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