PICKEREL FISHING 333 



where they even keep young mud-fish for sale as 

 bait to the unsuspecting, and will assure them 

 that these are the young of dog-fish and are par- 

 ticularly alluring. But the fishermen, the real 

 fishermen, know better. 



The mud-fish, more properly the bowfin, is a 

 small, dark-colored, ganoid fish which is so tough 

 and will live under such discouraging circum- 

 stances that it would make ideal pickerel bait if 

 the pickerel would have anything to do with it, 

 but they will not. So in some ponds it is with 

 the mummy-chogs which are admirably tough 

 and live long and are lively when impaled. On 

 the other hook the shiner is a little, silvery, soft- 

 scaled fellow so gentle that he will come up to the 

 pond side and eat cracker crumbs out of your 

 hand. I have had shiners so tame from fre- 

 quently feeding them in this way that I could 

 handle them, though not to their own good, for 

 the shiner is as tender as he is beautiful and just 

 a few hard knocks, that a mummy-chog would 

 pass with a flip of his tail, will wreck him. Yet 

 for pickerel fishing through the ice the shiner is 

 the king of bait and fortunate indeed are those 

 fishermen who can obtain enough shiners to af- 

 ford to use them lavishly. Properly hooked, just 



