"OUT OF THE DEPTHS." 213 



curely and tie uroiuid their uecks lines of suitable length, 

 to which trout-hooks are attached. 



With hook and line or net, catch, close to shore, the 

 small fry needed for bait, put them in a pail of water to 

 keep them alive ; then row out on the lake with them and 

 the bottles; here and there, as you go, bait a bottle-hook 

 Avith a live fish and drop it overboard ; then go back home, 

 and once in a while take a look at the surface of the water ; 

 if you have a spy or opera-glass, so much the better. It 

 is surprising how far off the floating bottles can be seen, 

 and if a trout has seized upon the bait, that fact is easily 

 noted by the erratic movements of the bottle and the agita- 

 tion of the water around it ; and then one has only to row 

 out and haul in the captive. 



Another way of using the bottles is to cast them out 

 over the lake, and then row slowly about among them, 

 keeping watch upon them all. The time occupied is just 

 the same as if fishing from the boat with one hook ; but 

 the chances of a successful result are enhanced just as 

 many times as there are bottle-hooks floating around. 



There is something interesting, and exciting too, in this 

 novel way of fishing with "a dozen irons in the fire" — a 

 dozen hooks in the water at once. The eager eyes travel 

 here and there, watching each movement or suspicious bob 

 of the bottle-buoy, until doubt becomes certainty, and then 

 how the oars rattle in the row-locks ! Then is the time 

 when, if one is in a "Florida batteau," a scow, in other 

 words, he would give much to be in a " Eureka," or other 

 light skiff, so as to skim the faster over the waters. That 

 bobbing, dancing bottle — now laying flat on its side, now 

 standing on end, now disappearing, now" popping up to the 

 surface again, several yards from where it went down — is 

 so very tantalizing that one is tempted to sing as a dirge : 



" Thou art so near, and yet so far." 



