FROM STRIKE TO GAFF 183 



Jay Cook of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, tried his luck 

 at McNaughton, Wisconsin, and from the cold 

 waters of Black Lake landed a five-pound fifteen- 

 ounce, small-mouth bass. To land a small-mouth of 

 this size is a mighty pleasant task and little does the 

 true fisherman care whether it is snowing, raining, 

 blowing or what not, if he can match his angling skill 

 with the keen trickery of a grown-up small-mouth. 

 Here is the yarn A. J. spins about his polar-bear 

 bass: 



COLD WEATHER BASS SHOWS SPEED 



"Swish! Out of the weed-bed he whip-lashed 

 like a cupro-nosed perforator from an automatic 25. 

 Then Zing! I thought for a moment that I had 

 been transferred in some unbelievable manner to the 

 Baltic Sea and had struck a submarine torpedo en- 

 dowed with life. 



" To begin at the beginning. It had been a bad 

 two weeks. The underwater plants, late for the 

 season, were in full bloom. Rain all the time and 

 the last three days freezing, with three snowstorms 

 on the side. A few casts from the boat, with the 

 icy, spray-coated wind swirling over the choppy lake, 

 and then a return cabinward, with frosted toes, 

 fingers and language and the casting thumb almost 

 rubbed to the bone. 



" The evening before the last day of our stay I 

 had picked up a curious, sharklike artificial minnow. 



