536 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 26, 1913 
incongruous. There are two ways (of mine) to 
fasten the hook, but I prefer that which will 
be described last. These are selected through 
a process of elimination. 1 have tried man)^ 
With the point of a knife blade pick out a hole, 
the center of which will be the small drill hole, 
the diameter that of the outside of the hook’s 
eye and the angle of the bottom that at which 
the hook will set. Place the eye therein and 
make rigid with a much shorter screw than de¬ 
scribed. 
The other method employs the metal eye 
used by harness maker,'. They are about the 
size of a BB shot and flare at one end. File 
away a quarter of its length from the small 
end. and just a trifle from one side of the flare; 
enough to allow it to rake forward at the angle 
of the hole when that end is placed over it. 
Place the hook over the small end, pass the 
screw through and make rigid. The angle from 
the longitudinal at which the hooks will trail 
depends on the lure being on the surface or 
under water. If surface, according to my idea, 
the angle is downward; if under water, it is 
slightly upward. 
In placing the tail hook, let the last turn 
of the screweye find the barb above, and again 
we introduce a factor designed to frustrate the 
diabolical intentions of logs and limbs. It will 
pass over them like a steeplechaser over the 
water jump. 
For coloring matter there is a wide range. 
Iron bed enamel is good, especially in white 
and shades; and bath tub enamel in very small 
friction top cans. Vivid colors are in carriage 
paints, and a small bottle full will repaint a 
minnow many times. If you live in a large city 
you many find products better suited to the pur¬ 
pose, and of which I never heard. 
You are not limited to the torpedo-shaped 
minnow. One of the most successful of mine is 
made of white pine, shaped like a perch, painted 
an orange color, with Indian bead eyes of blue. 
Eyes, originally, but since one of them came 
violently in contact with a rock, alas! How¬ 
ever. the loss is no apparent handicap. Some¬ 
times I think, any way, the eyes are more at¬ 
tractive to the fisherman than the fish. So far 
as that is concerned, though, the entire lure is, 
sometimes, and then I don’t think. 
If you shave yourself, presuming the male 
member of the family to be doing this work, 
no matter who reads, you, meaning he, will find 
the spinners in the tube containing the soap. 
Break half of each blade from an old pair of 
shears and convert the tube into a flat sheet. 
The points of the shears will hinder manipula¬ 
tion, and besides you havn’t enough power to 
operate them beyond the center; also, they will 
spread. -Now she'll let you break them. 
If you—he. of course—do not shave at 
home, surely you are awakened sometimes by 
that Iiideous device, an alarm clock. Revenge! 
Reduce it as per the soap tube. Make models 
of the designs of spinners you prefer and trace 
with a lead pencil on the metal, reverse side of 
the nickel. Apply the shears as you did to 
produce those wonderful paper dolls, but with 
added force. Place the distorted spinner be¬ 
tween two blocks of hardwood, covering the 
nickeled side with blotting paper and beat it 
until flat. File the edges smooth. 
Fig. I mostly resembles the spinner of the 
trade minnow. Find the exact center and drill 
a hole from the nickeled side with the small 
drill. Assuming that we are looking at the 
nickeled side, bend away from you at dotted 
lines BB, then at A A bend toward each other 
the ends, causing them tO' overlap and making 
a hollow four-sided square. Be sure that it is 
square and that the drill is held to a perfect 
perpendicular when you drill through the 
double bottom. With forefinger and thumb 
bend the blades to a propeller shape. If you 
attach both head and tail spinner, reverse the 
bend of the blades, causing them to revolve in 
oposite directions and thus negative the 
tendency toward turning over the lure. 
To reduce the friction of the head spinner 
on the wood, place between them a washer 
made bj^ drilling a hole in a piece of the 
nickeled metal and cutting around it with the 
shears. To cause the tail spinner to turn easily, 
place behind it a bead. 
Fig. 2 represents a spinner that may be 
substituted for Fig. i, and can be more easily 
made with accuracy. Looking at the nickeled 
side, bend the ends away from you at dotted 
lines to a right angle with the surface of the 
blades, first boring the holes. It makes up well 
out of sheet copper or brass. 
Fig. 3 is easily made, the ends being bent 
the same as Fig. 2, but is not adapted to the 
minnow which has been described. To it may 
be attached flies, bucktails and short, chunky, 
wooden shapes, made to suit your fancy, with, 
of course, more or less regard for the fancy of 
the bass. 
Fig. 4 represents the shank on which Fig. 
3 spins. It is made of brass spring wire to be 
had on spools at hardware stores, in various 
sizes, and costs fifteen cents under the same 
conditions that apply to the drills and break¬ 
fast foods. Straightening a piece of the re¬ 
quired length, bend an end into the snap 
illustrated, then put on a bead, then the spinner, 
then another bead and .bend another snap, or a 
permanent loop, as this is the line end. Bend it 
opposite to the first snap. You will, of course, 
put the spinner on “wrong end to" on the 
first one you make, and discover the error after 
the loop is made. Here’s where the pliers come 
in handy. I form the snaps around a screw¬ 
driver or ice pick. 
If a small line snap is used no care need 
be taken not to scratch the spinner loop in the 
making. Otherwise the line will be quickly 
frayed where it is tied. This snap enables you 
to change lures quickly. It is represented by 
figure 6 and may be made of any wire having 
a slight spring in it, but I prefer very small 
brass or gold spring wire. To prevent scratch¬ 
ing when making the line end loop, place 
blotting paper in the nose of the pliers. This 
snap is also very convenient in connection with 
a casting weight which I make and use with 
flies. Bass (in Oklahoma) are not prone to 
come to the surface for flies and a weight to 
sink them affects adversely the casting qualities 
of a light fly-rod. I use the casting weight 
mentioned with a bait casting rod. Make it of 
cypress, torpedo shape, about one inch and a 
half long and half an inch in diameter at its 
center. Flowever, its dimensions are propor¬ 
tioned to the combined weight of the fly, the 
spinner and the casting weight itself, which is 
that best suited to your rod. I always take 
with me one weighing an ounce to be used if 
a heavy wind blows, although my rod does not 
cast it well. Place in each end of the wood a 
brass screwe3'e and in its center a weight, the 
same as in the minnow. A lead or slate color 
approximates invisibility in the water. I allow 
mine to soak over night in floor stain. I offset 
to an unknown degree its visibility by placing 
it a greater or less degree from the fly and 
spinner with reference to the clarity of the 
water. Occasionally a ba.ss will strike it, but 
this will happen only often enough to justify 
and lend color to the statement that the fish 
was the biggest you ever saw. 
You may connect a casting weight and a 
spinner more or less permanently with extra 
heavy line or gut, snapping on the fly and at¬ 
taching the line with its snap to the other 
screweye of the weight. Looping the line to 
the weight quickly frays the line. 
With this combination and a white miller 
fly, which I also made, on July 4 last, in May¬ 
nard Bayou, near Muskogee, Okla., I landed a 
channel catfish weighing eight and three- 
quarter pounds. The balance of the tackle was 
a three-ounce bait-casting rod and a ten-pound 
test Perry D. Frazer line. I have made and 
given these lures to several friends and all re¬ 
port its unusual attractive powers for catfish. 
Only in certain seasons do perch strike. In the 
spring they take a bright red fly on the ap¬ 
paratus described. This color is successful in 
luring bass during the winter, but no more so 
than yellow or orange, which is dependable the 
year round, and which is my favorite. Possibly 
I think this about the color, because I use it 
with greater persistency than any other. A 
large portion of the water we fish in Oklahoma 
is murky, and yellow is the most pronounced 
color for visibility in water, although it is not 
the quickest to record itself on a photographic 
plate.' 
As I said at the beginning, the making of 
these lures is neither for the rich or the poor, 
but for those in both classes who can take a 
justifiable pride in their ingenuity. And, be¬ 
lieve me, when you have caught your first bass 
or had even a strike on one of them you are 
amply repaid. 
Australian Crane Decreasing. 
It is authoritatively stated that the well- 
known Australian crane, or “native companion,’’ 
is becoming very scarce. 
