BAIT CASTING FOR BASS 



ber that as your line grows shorter it grows much 

 weaker. Do not crowd your bass if you have any 

 doubt about your line. Give him time and reach for 

 him as far as you can with your net. It is the last five 

 or six feet of your line which is most apt to break. 

 The bait caster's reel is another thing which must 

 receive good care. Today there are many reels 

 made which can be taken apart readily and yet 

 others which can readily be oiled. Every man to 

 his liking in these matters. There are owners of 

 revolvers and rifles who boast to their friends how 

 easily they can take these arms apart; yet there 

 are others of an older school who ask "Why should 

 a rifle or a revolver ever be taken apart?" Cer- 

 tainly the old-time high-class Kentucky reel was 

 not meant to be taken apart very often. If perhaps 

 you have jammed such a reel by overheating it 

 through casting too heavy a frog for too long a 

 time, you may have taken it apart and then found 

 you could not put it together again so that it ran 

 as handsomely as it did when you first bought it 

 and this even though you oiled it abundantly. The 

 trouble was that you oiled it too much. One of 

 these beautiful examples of the reel-maker's art is 

 fitted so closely that even the slightest coating of 

 oil will impede the free running of its plates. Take 

 your reel, therefore, if you feel you must dismount 



39 



