FISHING THROUGH THE ICE 165 



the bait he pulls on the line A, which pulls down 

 the wire hook at D. This throws the line loose, 

 so that the fish can uncoil and take what it wants 

 of C, whilst the lead sinker slides down to the 

 hook on the wire (a), and up flies the red pen- 

 nant, telling to everybody interested that a fish 

 has bitten. (The dotted lines indicate this mo- 

 ment). The angler's duty now is to proceed as 

 fast as his legs will carry him to the tip-up, care- 

 fully ease out the line, so that the fish be not 

 checked, and after waiting five minutes by the 

 watch proceed to haul in the fish. 



If these " tip-ups " are set for any length of 

 time, and if they be left, they will certainly be 

 frozen in ; and no one can do less or more than 

 cut them out with an axe, or wait till spring 

 comes. Even during the day's fishing we are 

 supposing, it becomes necessary to incessantly 

 keep the ice from accumulating or freezing in 

 the hole that is cut. To obviate this, and even 

 allow of the tip-up being set for days, I have 

 found the following device quite successful ; and 

 as it invariably happens that a fish gets on dur- 

 ing the night or early morning, it is sometimes 

 quite desirable to keep the tip-ups set all the 



