44 THE ART OF FISHING. 



of a frog skinned. Worms are sometimes used in small streams, 

 where the water is clear, and the game small. In using live bait, 

 when the pickerel takes it, do not draw your line too quickly. The 

 bait itself, if properly impaled, will be very lively and will be apt 

 to make a violent effort to escape its enemy. Inexperienced ang 

 lers may take this movement for a veritable bite; but when the 

 bite comes, there is no mistaking it. In impaling a small fish for 

 bait, pass the hook under the back fin, just under the roots of its 

 rays. This will not disable the fish, and it will appear lively in the 

 water. When using live frog bait, you pass the hook through the 

 skin of the back or belly or the back muscle of the hind legs. The 

 live frog is generally used on the top of the water if not, you should 

 let him rise occasionally to take air, When the pickerel has 

 seized your bait, give him plenty of time to swallow it, and also 

 plenty of line Somtimes he will hold it in his mouth and play with 

 it before gorging. On bringing him to land, be careful of his jaws, 

 for he has a set of teeth sharp as r^eedles. 



THE PERCH spawns a* the end of April or beginning of May, 

 depositing it upon weeds, or the branches of trees or shrubs that 

 have become immersed in the water; it does not come into con- 

 dition again until July. The best time for fishing for perch is 

 from September to February, it haunts the neighborhood of heavy 

 deep eddies, camp sheathings, beds of wreds, with sharp streams 

 near, and trees or bushes growing in or overhanging the water The 

 baits for perch are minnows, brandling or lob worms, and shrimps. 

 The tackle should be fine but strong, as with a fish bait a trout or 

 pike may frequently be hooked. Perch, unlike fish of prey, are gre- 

 garious, and in the winter months when the frosts and floods have 

 destroyed and carried away the beds of weeds, congregate together 

 in the pools and eddies, and are then to be angled for with greatest 

 success from 10 to 4 o'clock at the edge of the streams forming 

 such eddies. 



TROUT, which are caught in the numerous running streams of 

 the United States, vary in color, appearance and size, with the 

 quality of the soil pertaining to the streams they inhabit. The 

 fish called 'black trout, which are found in sluggish muddy 

 streams do not belong properly to the species. Trout will vary 

 as much in shape and flavor as in the color. They spawn in Sep- 

 tember and October, and the time for taking them is in the Spring 

 and Summer. You may fish lor trout until the 20th of August, 



