10 Fishcraft 



fishes, and casting about, so to 

 speak, for the lowly dace, the humble 

 bullhead, or others not even remotely 

 allied with any of the royal families 

 of fishdom. To begin at the bottom 

 will, after all, bring wider range of 

 knowledge, and a simple shiner is like 

 a flash of silver in the stream, worth 

 more than a silver dollar to the boy 

 as a first finny trophy, and who shall 

 say that the bullhead battling against 

 capture is not a fish w r ell worth taking. 

 True, the homely bullhead bores to- 

 ward the bottom instead of leaping 

 upward out of the water in his 

 struggle, but there is real excitement 

 for the juvenile fisher in landing him, 

 and something to be learned thereby. 

 On the larger streams and the lakes 

 the lessons become more varied and, 

 to the keen devotee of the art of an- 

 gling, far more attractive than those 

 followed in casting the lines for any 

 of the smaller denizens of the brook 

 -the trout excepted. Fishing for 

 perch is an excellent pastime, and the 

 smaller members of the bass family 

 the crappie or strawberry bass, the 



