The Pike Family 143 



to who can turn out the most ridiculous contriv- 

 ance, for the farther it departs from the original 

 spoon the more useless it becomes. Manufac- 

 turers are not all anglers, and endeavor to produce 

 what is most novel and attractive to the pro- 

 spective customer. Such appliances sell to the 

 uninitiated and unwary, but do not catch many 

 fish, or even anglers of experience. 



And the same remarks will apply in a measure 

 to the gang or trace of several hooks, usually 

 employed in trolling or spinning the minnow. 

 A minnow, hooked through the lips and it 

 may be a dead one with a single hook, will 

 move more lifelike, and be really more attractive 

 to the fish, than the whirling, wabbling one, brist- 

 ling with a dozen hooks. It is cruel and heartless 

 to employ so murderous a device. I have seen 

 the mouths of bass and pike and lake-trout 

 lacerated and mutilated, sometimes the lips and 

 upper jaw torn completely off, by the triangle of 

 the spoon or the half dozen or more hooks of the 

 gang or trace. If their use cannot be dispensed 

 with on the score of inutility, a single hook being 

 far more successful, their employment should be 

 relinquished in the name of humanity. 



The pike will not often rise to the artificial fly, 



