1090 
FOREST AND STREAM 
length is out. Then let it settle to the bottom, 
preferably on the edge of some under-water bank 
or gully. 
These gullies are often found off the mouth 
of a stream, having been cut deep into the bottom 
of the lake during the high water of spring. 
They are great haunts for bass, which are con¬ 
tinually nosing about in them to find any new 
food that the water may have brought down. 
Use no sinkers or floats—just a three-foot 
smoke-colored leader and a sproat hook of me¬ 
dium size, snelled or eyed. The latter, of course, 
are the thing if one prefers to tie his own hooks 
on the ground. At ten minute intervals, strip in 
a little line; pull in the line above the reel and 
let it rest in the bottom of the boat to make sure 
the bait has not fouled in the weeds or crawled 
under a stone. 
When the bait is first taken, do not strike at 
once. Bass seldom take the bait wholly into their 
mouths at the first attempt, as pickerel and some 
other fish do. They fumble it and turn it about 
before trying to swallow it. 
The proper time to strike really depends on 
the kind of bait. If it be a worm, the fish will 
fumble a moment and then take it all in its mouth 
and start away, swallowing as it goes. In that 
case the time to strike is when the “run off” starts. 
With a minnow, the fish will run with it a few 
yards, stop, and immediately begin the swallow. 
The time to strike then is ten seconds after the 
first stop. 
The same rule holds good with crawfish and 
helgramites, but with frogs a longer time should 
be given. Bass seem to have a decided antipathy 
to frogs in general, and when once they are 
killed there is no hurry about eating them. Their 
method of taking them seems to be somewhat in 
the following fashion: 
It is first taken by the legs and two-thirds of 
the body, thoroughly crunched and mouthed until 
all struggles cease, when the bass runs off with 
it ten yards or so and stops to mangle it some 
more. If no struggles ensue, the frog is turned 
about and swallowed head first, and when it is 
started well on the way to the fish’s stomach, 
off he starts once more in search of other food. 
So the time to strike then is when the second 
“run off” starts, for it is only then that one may 
be sure of hooking his fish. 
This method of striking necessitates much pa¬ 
tience on the fisherman’s part, but if one tries 
to hook the fish too soon it simply means a fish 
lost. Nearly every time the frog will be pulled 
from the fish’s mouth. Being dead and half 
skinned, it will not be taken again. 
For the benefit of those who prefer trolling, it 
can be said that it is all but hopeless during these 
hot days—the fish have no appetite nor ambition 
to chase a bait that moves as fast as a troll. 
They require something that is alive, but at the 
same time practically stationary—something that 
can be taken with little effort. And that is why 
the still fisherman sometimes makes the best 
catch of all at this season. 
On a Train in the Mountains of Western North Carolina. 
French Broad River, Brevard, N. C. 
MUSCALLONGE ON THE FRENCH BROAD 
By Ernest L. Ewbank. 
A new lure in the bait box and an invitation 
for an automobile ride out to the Pothole, form 
too much of a temptation for any old fisherman 
to withstand. And so, when the two came to¬ 
gether one day early in the season, I set out with 
a friend in his machine for the French Broad. 
It is a large rock that goes down and out into 
the river, and gives you a vantage point on which 
to stand or sit while casting. I started with my 
smallest bait rod, casting so that each time it 
reached a little further, until finally it was mak¬ 
ing forty or fifty feet. 
Then came a strike, and my friend saw it and 
hurried over with the gaff. It was a sitting cast, 
and I guessed the fish to be some three pounds 
heavy. I could not tell yet whether he was bass, 
rainbow trout, or muscallonge, as he played deep, 
and never came out of the water. So my pal 
stood ready with the gaff, a rather small one, 
determined to get him in his gills. We man¬ 
aged, as the fish came up by the rock, to barely 
touch him. Out of the water he came with a 
swish. I was on guard; I gave him the line, and 
he was off on a run again, taking some fifty feet 
of line: 
I had seen now that he was a muscallonge. 
Again I brought him to the shore, and this 
time the gaff reached him and went between his 
gills, lifting him on to the rock. 
This move was not to the fish’s liking, so he 
promptly threw off from the gaff and was back 
in the river, new on the upper side of the rock. 
It was a favorable location for him, because on 
this side there was a fallen tree, some twenty- 
five feet from the rock, making it difficult to 
play him. 
However, I did manage to play him back into 
the lower pool, and got hold of the gaff myself. 
Bringing him once more to within reach, now 
well played out and turned belly up, I brought 
him out—this time for keeps. 
He was not a large fish, as these fish go, meas¬ 
uring just 31 inches and weighing up to 6 pounds 
some few hours later. But he gave me some 
sport at that, considering that I had landed him 
with my little rod. 
Two weeks later, I had some business at Pis- 
gah Forest station, near the mouth of Davison’s 
River. This stream empties into the French 
Broad a quarter of a mile from the station, and 
1 had a whole two hours to waste before return 
train time. 
I had not fished here myself for a number of 
years, but meanwhile it had been yielding fish 
weighing up to more than twenty pounds. 
I rigged up the same little rod and outfit I 
had used at the Pothole, and began to cast. For 
a while there was not a sign of a fish. Then, 
suddenly, there was a swirl close in to the shore 
and a big fish took the line. As I played it out 
—he was too close for me to strike the hook in 
yet—he slipped from under it, and started, with 
angry darts, to spar for minnows. Twice he 
went out of the water in his headlong rush after 
the little fellows. And his pettishness afforded 
me a little breathing spell during which I got 
the lure caught on the bottom of the river, and 
only after much effort got it loose again. 
Then I recollected that my train would be 
along perhaps in a few minutes. Hurrying now, 
and without “wasting” any time in testing my 
line and leader, I commenced casting again. 
Again the big fellow made a dash for the bait, 
this time almost at my feet. Then I spoke to 
him, in no uncertain language: 
“Strike, you son-of-a-gun, strike!” I whistled, 
“so I can strike back.” 
He did it. 
It was a pretty sight, to see a big fish shoot up 
through the clear water and seize the lure nearly 
on the surface. 
He was about fifty feet away, and I struck 
the hook in well. As I did so, the line and leader 
flew back behind me with a whish! When it 
swung back into my line of vision, I saw that 
the little brass snap was broken in two at the 
bend. Should I have “wasted” the time to look 
over my line and lure, after I recovered it from 
the bed of the river a little while before? This 
little experience has convinced me that the only 
proper answer to that question is “Yes.” 
It does not pay to take chances with your 
(Continued on page 1112) 
