KEEPING ALIVE TO TAKE LIFE. 



295 





to three gallons of water, with the lid 

 perforated to let air into the bait, is 

 generally sufficient ; but some anglers 

 prefer a double pail, the inner one per- 

 forated all over in holes the size of 

 buckshot. In this case the pails are of 

 equal size at the top and bottom, or 

 cylindrical, and the inner pail may be 

 taken out and the water changed be- 

 fore returning it, without the danger of losing bait. Another 

 plan is to have a can shaped like the foregoing cut, and, in- 

 stead of frequently changing the water, insert a siphon, and 

 draw the water up and let it fall back into the can, which 

 aerates the water and revives the bait. In carrying young 

 trout to stock streams, the cans may be of either wood or tin, 

 but they 'should be constructed with a pump to aerate the 

 water. Clean swamp-moss, and a small piece of ice in moss, 

 should always be placed in the water for conveying live fish 

 several miles in warm weather. 



SPINNING BAITS. 



Spinning baits for trolling on all fresh waters have proved 

 the most successful for nearly all the game fishes which in- 

 habit them. I incline to the opinion that, if spinning minnow 

 squids could be made strong enough for trolling with along 

 our coasts and in our estuaries, all the surface-feeding fish 

 of those waters might be taken in greater numbers than they 

 are now by casting menhaden bait, and by all other fish- 

 ing appliances except the set-nets and pounds, which as 

 they take all sizes of fishes should be regulated by law, es- 

 pecially as to where they may be used, and under what con- 

 ditions, etc. Of course, the rig for coast-trolling would re- 

 quire to be made very strong ; for even the plain bluefish 

 squid fastened to a heavy hawser-laid line is often parted by 

 the jaws of bluefish, Spanish mackerel, bonetta, or cero. Even 

 a fifty or seventy-five pound striped bass, or a twenty or thir- 



