120 FISHERMAN'S LURES 



works its way up the shirt-sleeve. In desperation, 

 we place the rod between our teeth, to leave our 

 two hands free; yet still another hand would be 

 welcome to save us from simply having grass for 

 bait. 



We cast forth the hooked one to lose our sad 

 thoughts in the rigor of the game. In half a minute 

 the wriggling terror has crawled under a rock, 

 and budge it we cannot, being wound around the 

 rock, lying snug in a hole, past recovery. We get 

 so mad, giving a jerk and a pull, that the line comes 

 back minus bait, hook, and leader. With a sad 

 and weary smile we find it to be the last bait, and 

 we have no bass. It is then, more than ever, we cry 

 in anguish: "Oh, why didn't we get artificial eels !" 



As to minnows, the best thing an angler can do 

 is to frankly admit there is more real sport in 

 catching them than there is in bass fishing. Cer- 

 tain, we need not imagine it less lively or difficult. 

 Who has not tried to drive a school of lovely min- 

 nows up a little brook, and with a net struggled to 

 scoop them out of a convenient pool only to find 

 the net held tight at the bottom by a rock or sunken 

 branch which rips a hole right across it, and the 

 water so muddy we are forced to wait fifteen min- 

 utes for it to clear. So we mend the net. By the 



