CHAPTER VH. 



SPOON BAIT. 



DEAR brother of the rod, unless thou wast born, brought up, 

 or been fishing in the northern part of the State of New York, 

 you must certainly wonder at the above caption as a name for 

 an article to bait fish withal. Shade of departed Walton ! 

 could you but imagine a silver plated table-spoon attached to 

 a hook to lure the finny tribe with ! thou wouldst shrink with 

 utter dismay from the sight. But there were no Yankees in 

 Walton's days, and the telegraph and spoon bait were alike 

 unknown. This, dear reader, is a good trolling bait for Black 

 Basse, Lake Trout, Pike, and Muskellunge. 



It was first invented and used by a gentleman in the vicinity 

 of Saratoga Lake for Black Basse. The idea occurred to him 

 that the Lake basse would bite at anything bright if kept in 

 motion ; he procured the bowl of an old silver plated spoon, 

 scraped off the silver from one side, cut off the point, flatted the 

 shape, soldered two good sized hooks in the small end, and 

 attached a swivel to the other. It worked like a charm, and he 

 took more fish in the same space of time than was ever done 

 before by any individual in the neighborhood. It has since 

 been made up in various styles, with one, two, and three hooks, 

 and is made with silver plate or brass on the convex side, and 

 painted red (decidedly the best color) on the concave. They 

 are for sale at the fishing tackle shops in the city of New York, 

 and can generally be had in the vicinity of the lakes. It is 

 used in the ordinary manner of boat trolling, or can be em- 

 ployed in hand trolling from the bank. 



It would be well to try it for other descriptions of either 

 fresh or salt water fish. If made small it would answer very 



