October, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
571 
ning reel and a Number 5 braided silk 
line. Your helgrammite is your true 
cootie; he positively yearns to plant his 
feelers in where you will yell with ap- 
preciation, reacting to him by flipping 
him into the middle of next week — and 
his freedom! However, your thumb on 
his head, and your hook through his tail, 
is the story, after which he is paid out 
into the current until he whirls about in 
an eddy seventy-five feet away. And, 
about then — some chesty specimen of the 
bass tribe, in the featherweight class, 
will lam him for the count! 
The right places at which to cast, when 
your boat or your canoe is gliding along 
some forty feet outside of the lily pads 
or the rocky banks of the lake, is one 
of the fine points of the game worth 
studying out. Hon. Bass, Esq., is as 
predatory a plutocrat as ever shook fins 
with a hay-rube blue-gill, and he has a 
flair for opening his bucket shop under 
a sunken log, a dock, a boat, a cove in 
the lily pads, a crack in the rocks, a 
hollow in the stumps — any place where 
he can order his shell of beer at a com- 
fortable table and watch the passing 
crowd for suckers. And here is where 
the tyro and the half-practiced amateur 
fall down in bait casting, for, to hurl 
the plug into his lair, accurately, and 
with finesse enough not to give the game 
away, requires practice in casting — about 
four centuries of it, more or less. The 
natural phenomenon you are to simu- 
late, is that of a froglet leaping off a 
lily pad and starting to strike out for 
somewhere else, or a minnow making 
a voyage of discovery to parts unknown. 
Your lure crosses Mr. Bass’ lair, casu- 
ally — and he gets het up, right off, and 
biffs the intruder. I know expert cast- 
ers who always start their return be- 
fore the bait strikes the water, so that, 
from the moment it attracts the bass’ 
attention it is hurrying to get away from 
him. I have no such finesse myself, but 
generally find that a good cast, accu- 
rately placed in some likely cove or lair, 
is rewarded with an instantaneous strike 
if there is a bass lurking there. 
> And, once hooked, what then? With 
the short, five and a half foot bait-cast- 
ing rod, you most truly have your hands 
full! The bend of the rod is but two 
and a half feet, so virtually all the play 
must be done on the reel. If this is not 
braked judgmatically, either it runs wild 
and backlashes in the middle of the fight, 
or you get too stubborn and he breaks 
the line. Coolness — just when your 
heart is pumping so hard you can hear 
it if you open your mouth — is the grand 
essential. When he rushes, give him 
line, braking the reel with your thumb 
against the spool cheek, or else with 
your forefingers across the rod under the 
reel and resting against its drum. Both 
ways have their advocates. If he rushes 
for the boat, reel up slack, and don’t 
be in too much of a hurry to slip the 
landing net under him, for he is no- 
where near played out yet, and will likely 
get away just as he comes over the side. 
Let him go, and if he runs under the 
boat, turn it with a stroke of the oar. 
Twa of his favorite tactics are, dashing 
for a wad of roots and tangling your 
line in them, or else hiding behind a 
mess of lily pads, where you cannot drag 
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