October. 1922 
443 
When the lakes of the north are like dreams of shadow and light 
open to debate. Some prefer a strip of 
pork rind on a hook, some a frog, some 
a wobbler ping, and others a spoon-hook. 
There is something very attractive about 
a spoon-hook of the regulation sort, that 
is to say, a spoon revolving on a shaft, 
of the nickle-plated sort, with the ridg- 
ings or flutings on it. There is a type of 
spoon that I have trolled with success- 
fully — the so-called Lobb spoon — which 
has a gang-hook connected to one end 
of it by means of a split ring and a 
swivel and split ring in the other end 
for the line connection. I have never 
cast with this, hut I have an idea that 
it would be even better than the regu- 
lation type of spoon, for it is of a class 
of spoons known as wobblers and darters 
which, in a surprising degree, imitate 
the actions of a disabled fish in the water. 
As I write these lines on the shores 
of Piseco Lake in the Adirondacks I am 
but a few rods from the spot where Old 
Lobb lived and pounded out in his crude 
mold the spoons that bear his name and 
which proved so successful on lake trout 
in this lake and others in the North 
Woods. One Tremaine brought the 
originals of this spoon to Rome, New 
York, where they are now made, I be- 
lieve. 
The Lobb spoon measures 2j4 inches 
long by 1 inch wide, slightly tapering to 
the tips where the swivel for the line is 
attached. While not very heavy, one 
can readily cast it with a smooth-running 
reel. The Lohb spoon is made in two 
colors or materials, the copper and the 
nickle-plated. The former is used on 
bright days and the latter on murky 
days. I vastly prefer the nickle-plated 
one. But where a regulation spoon is 
used the Number 5 size will cast well, 
and it should be kept polished so that it 
will throw a seductive glitter through 
the water — the more glitter the more 
alluring it is to the fish. 
Both for use in casting and in trolling 
there is a method of making the spoon- 
hook lure more attractive and deadly 
which until a year ago I had not followed 
up. The idea of the spoon-hook is that 
it will be mistaken by the fish for a dis- 
abled fish of another variety, and ^ dis- 
abled one being easier to overtake with 
less exertion than one not incapacitated, 
the pike will seize it every time. The 
gang of hooks masked in red and white 
feathers probably may be viewed as a 
tail — that is my solution of it. Such 
being the case, one can strengthen the 
impression of the spoon being a fish by 
hooking on a fish tail to one of the hooks 
of a treble, or gang, using a gang de- 
nuded of its feathers. The tail may be 
cut off of a sunfish or some other such 
variet}', leaving a portion of the flesh 
and backbone adhering to the tail to 
give enough “area” in which to seat the 
hook. A greater proportion of catches 
will be made with this lure, so rigged 
up, both for casting and trolling, and it 
will prove a winner in autumnal fishing 
for lake trout, wall-eyed pike, and even 
bass. 
For bass use a Number 3 spoon with 
a suitable bare hook; indeed, a Number 
3 spoon and hook can be made very at- 
tractive for bass by hooking on a thin 
strip of flexible pork rind about 2 inches 
long and a half inch wide, tapering out 
to one-fourth inch. It may be wired or 
threaded to the hook shank to remain 
firm and so last for many a trip on the 
waters. 
I N the above some space has been de- 
voted to fishing in the inshore waters 
in the morning, from sun-up to about 
seven or eight o’clock, when the pike 
betake themselves to the deeper waters 
off of the bars. 
During the summer the large fish 
eschew the shallower waters after eight 
o'clock in the morning, owing to the heat 
and to the fact that their “food” is not 
moving about ; also to the fact that the 
larger the fish the more conspicuous will 
he be in the waters inshore, an instinc- 
tive precaution on the part of the fish 
that need not cause any wonderment. 
But if the day is cloudy or misty and the 
waters fretted with ripples the conditions 
are reversed, for then we may conjec- 
ture that the fish feels free, safe in the 
belief that he is not seen, which, of 
course, he is not, even should he be but 
five feet away. On such days, too, the 
“food” is moving about ; and a day such 
as this, be it summer or autumn, proves 
the best one can select for trolling and 
casting in and on the outer edge of the 
weed-and-pad thickets. Chances are you 
will have a strike up in a “pocket” be- 
tween the pads, hut remember every 
time you make a cast up there that you 
have to get your fish away from those 
pads even if hy main force, and pull for 
deeper water to fight it out with him. 
Pike haunt the mouths of inlets and 
run up small streams as far as they can 
without making themselves visable ; their 
object is the pursuit of minnows which 
abound in such places where they feel 
they will find shelter and can reach 
shallow water with ease. A pike enter- 
ing a stream of the sort knows he is 
out of his element, and it is probable 
that he is alert, on edge, and ready to 
flash lakeward at the first intimation of 
danger. But in the early morning and 
in the late afternoon, bridging on dusk, 
if one will select a vantage-place com- 
manding certain pools and ways of ap- 
{Continued on page 470) 
He leaped when I dipped to take him in and the camera caught him coming down 
