396 
FOREST 
AND STREAM 
July, 1920 
MARBLE'S 
Specialties 
Aid the Fisherman 
Marble’s Equipment will add to your 
pleasures and lighten work necessary to 
your comfort. 
Clincher Gaff 
Swift, safe, sure, simple — far bet- 
ter than a landing net. Reach out, 
touch the fish, close your hand — he 
can’t twist out or tear. Strong, 
durable, $1.10. 
Safety Folding 
Fish Knife 
Cuts, rips, scales — in addi- 
tion it’s a dandy all-around 
outdoor knife. Rigid as a one- 
piece knife when open. $1.50. 
Trout Knife 
Designed especially 
for dressing trout, but 
is great for all fish. Far 
better and handier than 
a jack-knife — fits the 
pocket. 60c including 
323 metal bound leather 
sheath. 
Marble’s line includes axes, 
knives, sights, cleaning imple- 
ments and many other items. 
If your dealer can’t supply 
you order by mail — ask for 
Marble’s catalog. 
Marble Arms & Mfg, Co. 
526 Delta Ave. 
Gladstone, Mich. 
* v. A 
RUSSELL'S 
‘NEVER LEAK* 
The built-for-hard-knocks 
boot that sportsmen 
swear by — soft, easy-fit- 
ting and as near water- 
proof as a leather boot 
can be. 
Made to meas- 
ure from best 
q u al it y 
ch rom e - 
tanned 
1 eathers. 
If your dealer 
doesn’t carry 
RUSSELL’S, 
write us for 
a catalog. 
W.C.RUSSELL 
MOCCASIN 
CO. 
% 
61^ Wisconsin St. 
BERLIN. WIS. 
SOME QUEER BAITS I HAVE USED 
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 374) 
leader struck and sank slowly into the 
sepia-tinted water, the tiny frog kicking 
and swimming as he went down. Sud- 
denly the line tightened and cut through 
the water for the opposite river bank; 
twenty yards ran off the reel and then, 
abruptly, it stopped. 
“Don’t yank! — not yet!” Ren cautioned 
— unnecessarily. “Let him swaller it.” 
I held up on the “yanking” until con- 
vinced that the fish had “swallered” the 
bait; and after a lively scrap we landed 
the bass. Then for a half hour we were 
busy baiting up, fighting and netting the 
fish. If was real old-fashioned fishing. 
As Ren had said: the little tree frogs 
were “most ’mazin’ good bait!” 
O NE warm mid-September day, I 
shouldered pack-basket and photo- 
graphic equipment and hit the trail 
to the camp of a sportsman friend, who, 
like myself, was addicted to the habit of 
camping out at all seasons of the year — 
whenever opportunity afforded. My time 
limit was but a week, and, while I could 
neither hunt nor go trout fishing, the 
weather was ideal for picture taking and 
knocking aimlessly around in the woods. 
One particularly fine morning, as we 
strolled along a trout brook, we noted 
many fair-sized fish on the ripples and 
in the shallow pools, although it was yet 
too early for spawning. My friend re- 
marked how good a mess of trout would 
go for a change. 
“Yes,” I answered, “but the season is 
not in, and, besides, we have no bait.” 
He laughed. “If bait were the only 
consideration,” he said, “we can get 
plenty of that — and it’s good bait, too!” 
Going to a clump of beech trees, he 
carefully inspected the dew-dampened 
trunks and from them collected a handful 
of big snails, which, for some reason not 
readily apparent, but possibly in their 
search for food, were slowly climbing up 
the smooth grey bark, each leaving a sil- 
very trail of slime in its wake. He 
then stepped to the creek bank and 
tossed the snails into a shallow pool. 
Instantly, a number of trout rushed to 
the surface and began tearing the 
snails to bits, actually fighting for a 
bite of the unusual food. I had 
previously baited trout with various 
worms and insects and even small, live 
crawfish, but this was the first time I had 
seen the fish come up for snails. And, 
judging from the avidity with which these 
particular trout assailed the slimy gaster- 
opods out of season, one would be safe in 
carrying a few snails in the bait box when 
lawfully in quest of trout. . . But, 
let me add, on the occasion above men- 
tioned, friend camper and the writer suc- 
cessfully resisted the tempting potentiali- 
ties of a nice plump snail — plus a trout 
hook! 
While not advising the prospective fish- 
erman to embark upon a piscatorial ven- 
ture unfortified with an ample supply of 
trusted baits, both natural and artificial — 
and for a wilderness trip a book of “kill- 
ers” in the way of bass and trout flies — 
the possibilities of odd natural baits are 
far from negligible. One of the most suc- 
cessful all-around fishermen of my ac- 
quaintance always opens and examines 
the contents of the stomach of the first 
fish caught, just to learn what stream-bed 
and stream-side natural baits the fish is 
taking. Usually he finds that the fish so 
examined has recently partaken of a small 
crawfish — also an assortment of bugs, 
flies, worms and the like. And frequent- 
ly it is one or two of the latter that make 
the catch for that day. 
Sometimes the employment of a suc- 
cesful out-of-the-ordinary bait is the re- 
sult of chance. Tired of active fishing 
one bright afternoon, I sat resting on a 
large log- and driftwood-jam which 
choked the down-stream end of one of the 
swiftest, deepest pools in the creek. As 
I rested, I idly experimented with various 
flies and baits, casting and changing; 
changing and casting, yet failing to start 
a trout of any size. A small trout was 
skinned and cut up and different parts 
used as a “white” bait; but still the pool 
was unresponsive, though I knew, from 
many years’ fishing of the stream, that 
the pool was the home of great trout. 
Eventually, I put on the head of the little 
trout, running the hook through from side 
to side — in one eye socket and out the 
other — and sliding it well up the steel 
shank. Several times I let the trout head 
swirl down beneath the log- jam, rest there 
a while on, or near the bottom, then pulled 
it slowly to the surface, causing it to re- 
volve, spinner-like, around the shank of 
the hook. Then, as I decided to quit fish- 
ing for the day, and perhaps a trifle vexed 
that all my patient efforts had been un- 
rewarded, I pulled the bait up with a 
couple of rapid jerks. The effect was 
almost magical. As the fish head swirled 
to the surface, a big brook trout darted 
swiftly up in its wake, took the bait and 
flashed back into the log-shaded depths 
of the pool. Only by the merest chance 
did I refrain from giving the bait a 
harder yank away from the pursuing fish 
as it shot so unexpectedly into view, and 
relax instead of tightening the line, until 
the big trout was safely hooked. Then 
followed a fight in which I was forced 
to take to “deep water” to prevent the 
great speckled beauty from getting back 
under his log pile. But eventually he 
surrendered — the second largest brook 
trout I have recorded in my fisherman’s 
log-book of successful battles. 
TURTLE EGGS 
(continued from page 379) 
ficial conditions under which they were 
kept may have done them no benefit, for 
most of them spoiled. But one which 
was broken on September 14 fell away 
from a perfectly formed young turtle 
capable of slight motion, but with a 
large yolk-sac still attached, and another 
hatched on September 21, still having a 
large part of the yolk-sac attached. 
Incidentally that year, 1919, a oouple 
