56 THE SCIENTIFIC ANGLER. 



the baited spot at daybreak, if not before, when they are 

 on the forage for breakfast. The object in baiting over 

 night, it must not be forgotten, is merely to produce an 

 appetizing effect on the next morning. If the object in 

 view be to collect fish at any given spot from more distant 

 localities, a good store of ground-bait should be placed 

 there for a day or two previous, always allowing a whole 

 day and night's interval between the final baiting and the 

 time for angling. 



Having first ascertained the depth by the method pre- 

 viously described, and arranged the float so as to admit 

 of the bait ranging three or four inches from the bottom 

 of the water, the hand supporting the rod should be 

 ever ready to knock home the hook nicely and carefully, 

 and not too hastily. The correct motion will be readily 

 acquired by practice. Small fish will often take the float 

 under by a jerk, whilst the corpulent members of the 

 same species will scarcely indicate their presence by a 

 disturbance of the float at all, though when these begin 

 to pay their addresses to your lure after this style, it 

 generally proves a favorable symptom for sport ; but fre- 

 quently this exhibition of tenderness and delicacy is 

 merely the result of their style of mouth-work, if we 

 may be allowed to use the expression, the object of which, 

 the angler soon finds out, is to extract the bait from the 

 hook neatly and effectively. Now this is just as bad a 

 sign as the other is a good one, and what is worse, as a 

 general thing, the angler cannot help himself. A plan 

 we have found to answer ourselves in these circumstances 

 is to hang a scrap of the finest and best gut one quarter 

 of an inch below the hook, and upon this excessively fine 

 gut to attach a very small hook (though of small size, to 

 retain good strength of metal), upon this one-half of a 

 maggot or gentle is attached, with a full-sized one, or 

 even two, upon the hook above ; this will not fail to 

 " fetch" the most finical of the finny race in question. 



