2O2 Minnow- Fishing. 



the water ; and its weight, together with that of the 

 bait, is quite sufficient in slow spinning to sink 

 the minnow, and secure all those advantages of 

 attracting and hooking which Stoddart claims for 

 shotting. 



In spinning a minnow, the angler can scarcely 

 be said to be simulating the appearances and 

 movements of a free and healthy fish, and yet it 

 is undoubted that the trout take it as readily as, 

 and sometimes more readily than, if it were in a 

 sound and natural condition. The experiment has 

 often been made (though I have never tried it) of 

 drawing the minnow-bait through a shoal of live 

 minnows, and watching how a big trout would 

 dash through the host, single out the spinner, and 

 make after it, to the neglect of all the others. The 

 unusual motions of the minnow did not deter, 

 much less alarm it; rather did they seem to in- 

 dicate a disabled condition, and suggest an easier 

 prey. At all events, I am inclined to think that, 

 in attacking and taking a baited minnow, the trout 

 makes its calculations under a distinct impression 

 that it is a weak or injured specimen of its favour- 

 ite game, and therefore one more likely to succumb 

 to its rapacity. That the spinning is not simply 

 a means of disguising the tackle, but a fair sim- 

 ulation of the action of a disabled minnow, I 

 have often proved when catching minnows with 



