STREAMCRAFT 



you can follow Walton's suggestion and "get a 

 dead cat, and let it be fly-blown, and when the 

 gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury 

 it and them in soft earth, but as free from frost 

 as you can, and these you may dig up at any 

 time when you intend to use them; these will 

 last till March, and about that time turn to be 

 flies." 



Devices sometimes employed to get the bait 

 where it is wanted or to render it more effective, 

 are floating it downstream on a chip or leaf, or 

 feeding it to the fish before angling for them 

 a practise akin to salt-water "chumming." The 

 same thing is sometimes done at night, within 

 the glare on the water, at a likely spot, of a 

 fire built at the water's edge. A very foxy stunt 

 is to drop a fly on a patch of floating foam 

 which collects insects and allow it to rest 

 there till it sinks through. Other forms of de- 

 coying fish are sometimes resorted to when 

 food is sorely needed in camp, as placing some 

 minnows in a large corked bottle, the cork 

 having a small hole through it, and suspending 

 it in mid-water. Maggots falling from fly- 

 blown meat hung over a fish hole will likewise 

 entice fish. A blind may be made of branches, 

 to hide behind, in the vicinity of some especially 

 promising hole affording no natural shelter from 

 which to stalk it; this should be constructed the 

 day before fishing. 



92 



