206 CASTING TACKLE AND METHODS 



green copses, is very -entrancing. Even in mid-day 

 the sport can be indulged in, for the dense shadows 

 under the leaning trees always shelter feeding fish 

 in a populous river. I have found the best hours 

 to be those from dawn to eleven o'clock, and again 

 from four or five until dark. Yet it is the environ- 

 ment, the change of scene, the problems presented, 

 the expected fish, and the thrill of the battle, which 

 must always be fought against fearful odds, that 

 makes bank fishing attractive to one skillful enough 

 with short rod and multiplying reel to attempt it. 

 I know of no variety of angling that will so quickly 

 increase the angler's control, for without it shore- 

 casting is an impossibility. 



Under no conditions is the leap of the bass more 

 thrilling and beautiful. Opposite the rodster, forty 

 or fifty feet distant, a basswood tree leans out over 

 the water, its broad leaves playing with the current, 

 as a girl loves to dabble her fingers, leaning over 

 the side of a canoe. Back of the basswood stand 

 other trees, rank on rank, until lost in a solid mass 

 of green; or perhaps the leaning tree is alone, 

 reaching away and away beyond are broad culti- 

 vated fields. Whatever the background, the picture 

 is complete and satisfying. The angler pauses to 

 take it all in, even to the marsh hawk soaring in the 

 blue overhead, and the blue harebells ringing in the 

 breeze. Then the lure is sent hissing through the 

 air, straight as an arrow from a practised archer's 



