LANDING TOOLS; HOW TO USE THEM 161 



The ideal bass water, from Micropterus's view- 

 point, is well supplied with snags, and it is dollars 

 to doughnuts that the sulking fish is worming his 

 way between the rotten ribs of some wrecked 

 Hesperus, or forcing his weary body beneath some 

 water-logged tree-top. No other fresh water fish 

 will so quickly avail itself of natural refuges; with 

 the bass, any stick or stone may become a haven of 

 refuge and he seeks it forthwith. Nine times out of 

 ten a snagged fish is a lost fish, though all depends 

 upon the character of the snag. Once under a log, 

 he will seldom return in the same direction, though 

 we have all seen them do it on occasion. If the 

 water is sufficiently shallow so that the rodster can 

 observe his capture the problem is not quite so com- 

 plex, but in deep water, where the angler must fight 

 through sense of feeling alone, the odds are all in 

 the bass's favor. I bet on the fish. A single stick 

 up-turned in the water is all he asks; he wraps the 

 line around it with devilish ingenuity, though per- 

 haps the stick becomes as much of a puzzle to him as 

 it is a problem to the irate angler; he winds the line 

 around it because he must swim some-whither, and 

 if he frees himself, or the outraged angler breaks his 

 line, what brooks it. In the matter of a snagged fish, 

 I can only say, don't let it happen. 



That reminds me of an auspicious bit of angling 

 bad luck of a few years ago. I was shore casting 

 around a lake just fringed with down cedars, their 





