BLACK BASSE ANGLING IN MICHIGAN. 301 



leader of four or five feet in length. Pass your hook through 

 the eyes of the minnow, taking care not to wound the brain, and 

 he will live and swim about, the full length of his tether, in the 

 most natural manner possible. With this description of bait, and 

 this mode of adjusting it, you cannot fail to take basse, if they 

 are in the mood to bite at all ; whilst others, fishing near you 

 with portions of minnow or dead bait, will meet no encourage- 

 ment to continue their sport. 



Basse invariably swallow the bait head first. The manner 

 pursued by the boys living near the small lakes in Michigan, 

 will illustrate the superiority of live bait in taking Basse. They 

 take a small live sunfish, and after running a hook through the 

 extreme end of his nose, conceal its point with an angle worm ; 

 then, when it is cast overboard, a number of sunfish gather about 

 it attracted by the worm ; the collection draws the attention of 

 a basse, who straightway darts among them the little fellows 

 " all immajiately swim away" to shallow water, leaving the 

 decoy to the mercy of the hungry basse, who in his turn becomes 

 the prisoner of the ingenious young piscator. But Basse, like 

 others of the finny tribe, are not always caught when hooked. 

 In the season when in full strength, they make most violent 

 efforts to release themselves from the " barbed steel," and will 

 frequently, after making a burst or two, throw themselves two 

 or three feet out of the water with a flutter, shaking their heads 

 most intelligently to throw out the hook. This is a ticklish 

 time for the angler, and unless he keeps his strain upon the fish, 

 and drops the end of his rod, he will lose his prize. This ma- 

 noeuvre, a strong basse will repeat several times. The angler 

 who wishes to have a day's sport for Black Basse, should catch 

 his minnows the afternoon before, keeping them in a vessel per- 

 forated with small holes and sunk in the water. At early dawn 

 he must be off for the ground. If he has selected an eddy, 

 above which the water ripples over a rocky ledge or gravelly 



