ARTIFICIAL BAITS 113 



around a permanent camp, as they work while you 

 sleep or fish. They are usually baited with crumbs or 

 pellets of dough. 



Building a barricade of stones or stretching pieces 

 of netting across narrow streams and driving the 

 minnows into a grain sack in the center held open by 

 a hoop sometimes gets bait in quantities and quickly. 

 On deep water lakes and streams where netting and 

 seining are difficult, large chubs can be taken on a 

 tiny hook, sizes 14 to 18, baited with a maggot, or a 

 small piece of worm. 



Minnows are usually easier to catch very early or 

 very late in the season, as then they are in the small 

 feeder creeks. The "plant" of one of the large packers 

 of prepared minnows in the Middle West is simply a 

 small stream that empties into Lake Michigan. In 

 the spring and fall they catch and prepare hundreds 

 of thousands of minnows for bait. 



For ordinary bait or still fishing, dead or prepared 

 minnows cannot compare with live ones, but for cast- 

 ing they are apparently as good. Those who live in 

 regions where there is usually a minnow famine may 

 find it advisable to preserve some when they are plenti- 

 ful. Simply pack them in bottles or jars that can be 

 sealed tightly and pour over them a solution made by 

 adding one part of formalin to four parts of water. 

 A saturate (all the water will take up) solution of 

 boracic acid is also good. You will find that scaling 

 a dead minnow will add to its flexibility and attractive- 

 ness. 



