176 PICKEREL. 



you, take a turn with the hand-line round your leg, and 

 stretching yourselYes as best you may in the bottom of 

 the boat, sleep comfortably till either a call from youi 

 oarsman or a tug on your leg rouses you to the dreary 

 work of pulling in a worthless, unresisting log. "When 

 you strike and lose one fish, remain rowing round and 

 round ; if he is not much hurt, he will bite again, and 

 where there is one there are more ; remain at that spot 

 till, by passing over the ground once or twice without a 

 strike, you are thoroughly satisfied you have exhausted 

 the supply. There is sometimes great beauty of sce- 

 nery, and if your guide has anything to say, which 

 he rarely has, you can, as you should be able ever to do 

 in the open air, enjoy yourself. 



The mode of fishing among the pond lilies that I have 

 described is much more exciting, requiring continued 

 activity, some skill and no little judgment, while there is 

 greater risk- of losing your prey. To avoid the latter 

 casualty, if the fish weigh not over four pounds, lift him 

 out at once, and proceed in the same way with larger 

 fish to the extent your rod will stand. As for snap- 

 fishing, that is, using a hook so constructed as to spring 

 open or shut the moment it feels the bite, and thus 

 grasping the fish or imbedding an extra hook in his jaws, 

 I have only tried it sufficiently to be disgusted with it, 

 although probably it may work well in open water. If, 

 however, it touches a weed, it will be sprung, and then 

 you cannot catch a fish at all till it is reset. It was 

 invented to avoid the hook's coming out of the pickerel's 

 mouth, which, from the nature of the latter, it is apt to 

 do, a difficulty which old, slow, poky, English punt- 



