492 AMERICAN FISHES. 



Maggots (or as they are more genteely termed, gentles,) arc, as 

 every one knows, the house-fly in its first stage after leaving the egg. 

 They are plentiful enough all summer. A piece of meat need only be 

 left exposed and there will be plenty of them. They are a capital bait 

 for Trout, used when the water is low, and best in a blazing hot day, 

 poked on to a very small Trout-fly. Just run the hook through at the 

 thick end of a couple of them, crossways. Before using your gentles, 

 put them in oatmeal ; it hardens and cleans them. A copper-cap box 

 with fine holes drilled in the lid is a good receptacle for them. Late 

 in the fall, you must protect your breeding-box from frost, or else they 

 all go into the chrysalis state. Always use the largest. 



Crawfish also is a good bait for almost all kinds of fish ; hook them 

 through the body and use them the same as a worm. 



Frogs are good for Pike, Eels, Trout and Perch. Do not use the 

 bull-frog, but the grass-green fellows. Use a moderate sinker, else you 

 may find master froggy looking at you from the opposite shore, as I 

 read in the " Spirit" happened to some bright Waltonian. 



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Fig. 2. 



Fig. 3. 



For bottom fishing you require sinkers of various sizes, according to 

 the strength of the current. These you can easily make for yourself, 

 by boring a hole through a bullet with a brad-awl, and hammering the 

 ball on some flat piece of iron till you get it to the shape required. 

 You must then pass a loop of some strong line through it double, 

 splicing it sailor-fashion, and drawing the spliced part out of sight into 

 the hole. With these you require a swivel ; but you may buy sinkers 

 with a brass swivel ring at each end, which are by far the best. 



