October, 1919 
FOREST AND STREA IVI 
533 
alone, who can strike with thumb and 
forefinger knuckle and get him behind 
the ears every time! Are you a frog- 
gist? Can you tuck your belly in above 
your knees, and hover over an oozy pool, 
with cupped hand, yearningly snatching 
at the empty air where once passed a 
green froglet, propelled by the nimble 
hind legs of him? And how are you 
on turning over a brook stone and nail- 
ing a crawfish or a helgrammite, before 
he sees you first and hooks lovingly into 
thumb or toe? For, you must be all 
of these to go bait-fishing for bass. 
Some there be who delegate this to the 
small boy of the countryside, at one 
cent per each; and others, city dwellers, 
who go down on West Street and buy 
them, sequestered in a box of green moss. 
But — at any rate — have them, boy — have 
them all along, and a pail of minnows 
besides, if you want bass on a flat- calm 
July dpy. 
T he bass calendar is simple and 
easily remembered. The laws open 
up in mid-June or thereabouts in 
most states, and you hit the trail for 
your favorite lake or pond as near on 
Opening Day as you can make it. The 
fishing will be' fine, until about mid- 
July. Then comes a slack. It falls off, 
except for the little fellows, and does 
not begin again until nearly September. 
A sort of lethargy assails the fish. I 
don’t know what they do, but they don’t 
strike! I have watched three big fel- 
lows, of three pounds each and over, all 
contemplatively speculating over me, 
wondering what sort of idiot was up 
there on the rock, and what had he done 
for it, and when would the hanging come 
off, and so on, until it got on my nerves. 
Dibble a topwater over their heads — 
they’d eye it with scorn! Drop a plug 
down to them — they’d carry it gently 
over to a crack in the rocks and drop 
it in! Joint up the fly rod and heave a 
fly at them — they’d get into an argu- 
ment as to whether it was an Abercrom- 
bie or a Mills, but touch it — never! 
In September, however, the bass Ash- 
ing gets prime again and stays so until 
late in October; and down South, of 
course. I’ve taken them in February, 
although in the North Carolina uplands 
the water gets so freezing cold that no 
bass will strike and very few pickerel. 
While the cream of the bass fishing is in 
June, in late August and the whole of 
September, is mighty fine, particularly 
in the Adirondacks, and in lakes all over 
the North not too heavily fished. I gen- 
erally take a tent and a companion, and, 
with both bait casting and fly rods in 
the same canvas case, with the folding 
landing net lashed to it, I hit the trail 
into the mountains to some' lake that I 
know of, where one can take enough to 
eat and a few to throw back. Live bait 
we get on the ground; plugs and flies we 
take with us; also enough pork rind to 
make a quantity of pork minnows and 
chuks, for often this lure, hung in the 
shank of a large red fly, is the best taker 
of the lot. Six plugs and a dozen flies 
are plenty. Something white, with a red 
slash on it, seems the best formula for 
general bass fishing. Most of them are 
Bob Davis ready for a strike 
made with a slanting front face, so they 
will dive and wiggle as they are retrieved 
through the water. They have three 
hooks: one on each side of the throat, 
to take care of a fish striking from 
right or left, and one at the tail for 
pike. Generally these hooks are treble, 
so you will not lose a pike strike. It 
is a curious superstition among anglers 
that these baits are inhumane. Indeed 
I have found many a dry-fly purist whose 
nose was permanently dislocated in an 
upward direction, from sniffing over the 
shortcomings of those who use such baits. 
A moment’s reffection, however, would 
have shown him that they are, on the 
contrary, the most humane bait there is, 
for they cannot be swallowed, like a 
hook with a live frog on it, nor caught 
in the fish’s tongue or gullet as with 
an artificial fly; in fact, the only place 
they can catch is in the lip of the bass. 
This lip is horny and covered with fine 
rudimentary teeth, so that he has no 
pain from the hook, no dragging his poor 
stomach inside out, as ■with live bait, and 
no torn gills or gullet as with flies. And, 
at no time can he get more than one 
hook in his mouth. The bass strikes for 
the throat of his prey. That is the rea- 
son the red slash is so effective; it re- 
sembles gills, and so here go two hooks, 
one on each side, for of course he must 
come from one side or the other. A third 
hook, at the tail for a pickerel or pike 
who strikes from behind, or for a bass 
chasing the plug — and there you are, 
armed logically and effectively! And 
yet many haughty anglers there be, who 
wrap yards and yards of vindictive 
breath around the numerous hooks adorn- 
ing the agile plug! 
O NE of the most effective all-around 
baits, particularly in lily-pad lakes, 
is a home-made contrivance, cob- 
bled up out of a red Bing fly, a spoon, 
two swivels, two split rings and a pork 
rind minnow. This red fly is a large 
one, tied on about 4/0 size of hook and 
weighted with lead so it will cast well. 
You could make a dozen of them for the 
price of one, by buying the bare hooks, 
raiding your wife’s hat for a red feather, 
and tying them yourself, with a bit of 
lead solder wire under the wrapping. 
Split rings are a few cents a dozen, and 
small brass swivels ditto. Choose a 
bright nickel spoon and get a dozen of 
him also, and your whole bill ■will not 
come to a dollar, whereas a dozen of the 
red flies ■will cost you $6 “as is,” not 
counting the other elements of the bait. 
And I like a dozen of him, because he 
sinks beyond recall if snapped off into 
the middle of the lake by a backlash, or 
if hooked down deep in the lilypad stems, 
or if caught in a rock crevice or snag — ■ 
anyone of a quantity of perils that beset 
a bait. 
Well, let’s grant, for the sake of get- 
ting on ■with the story, that you have 
got your list of commodities specified 
above. Make up the bait as follows: 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 570) 
I use the fly-rod when they are running too small for a regular bait 
