152 PRACTICAL BAIT CASTING 



As much as one may admire the short casting rod it 

 must be confessed that the Henshall rod is a much bet- 

 ter tool for fast water fishing. 



NIGHT CASTING 



All, or nearly all, game fishes are nocturnal in their 

 habits. That is, they travel about and feed mostly at 

 night and it is a generally accepted fact that the fish 

 we catch in the daytime are those which, for some rea- 

 son or other, did not satisfy their hunger the night 

 before. Bass and the pikes are night feeders and they 

 will often come to shore after nightfall to feed on 

 minnows, frogs, crawfishes, etc., and it is not an un- 

 common experience to walk along the shores at night 

 with a flashlight and see bass in water so shallow 

 that their back fins show above the surface. 



As regards bass, it will be found that the big old 

 timer always* secludes himself in the daytime and 

 does most of his feeding at night only that's how he 

 got to be an old timer. It was a long time before 

 casters, as a class, put these facts together, but now the 

 sport of night casting is quite generally practiced. 



While it seems to the writer that the sun is neces- 

 sary for ideal fishing, one can not deny 'the fascination 

 of a strike in the dark (sounds like the title of a melo- 

 drama, doesn't it?), and while the strikes- are not 

 as frequent and the percentage of fish landed is smaller 

 than when fishing in the daytime, the uncertainty is 

 an inducement in itself. Besides there is always the 



