588 
Belly View Shows Double Hook on 
Tail Large Powerful Hook Entirely 
Hidden. 
Large Hook Unseen From Below. 
Back View of Crawfish. 
Three Best Nature Lures For Bass 
of His Life Hunting for Food Like This and Here Is Something 
That Will Satisfy Him 
By Louis Rhead. 
Crafty Micropterus Spends Most 
HE crawfish, helgramite and 
lamper eel are exclusively bass 
food—pike and pickerel, also 
trout, have little or no use for 
them. With a quantity of these 
live baits on a fishing trip to 
lake or stream, I should be very 
confident to get plenty of bass 
at any time, locality or condition. 
Naturally they are most effective in river fish¬ 
ing, because they breed and live in rivers. On 
those three splendid bass rivers, the Schuykill, 
Susquehanna, and Delaware, the crawfish and 
helgramite stand first in the heart of every angler 
who loves bass fishing,—indeed, those three baits 
are universally used on those and many other 
lesser bass streams. 
The helgramite takes the first place for the 
reason it is more easily captured, is very tough 
on the hook, lasts a long time alive, is always 
lively and anxious to get away. The lamper eel 
is more delicate and soon dead—when dead it 
loses that fresh dark olive green to become a 
dull slate color; in that state bass do not take it 
so well. It is hard to get; hard to keep fresh; 
and a perfect devil in snagging your line. Dig¬ 
ging lampers is far from a pleasant recreation 
and I find it mighty hard, unpleasant, dirty work. 
Men and boys who sell them at an average 
price of five cents each, so that when you ex¬ 
perience as I have, the annoyance of seven out 
of ten being taken by chub (which usually abide 
along with bass) the price comes high to buy 
them. Crabbing in the brooks is altogether dif¬ 
ferent; in fact I consider it both amusing and 
interesting to catch crabs. But it requires ex¬ 
perience to be a good crabber, in addition to being 
pretty smart and very patient. It would, how¬ 
ever, be unwise on my part to describe how these 
baits are best caught, because I am hopeful that 
in the near future nature lures will be found such 
effective substitutes as to be quite as good, nay, 
better than the natural bait. When that fortu¬ 
nate time arrives, game fish foods of all kinds 
will increase more rapidly, being left at peace to 
serve their purpose of making game fishes more 
abundant and of greater size. No angler in his 
right senses will dispute this one fact—wherever 
food is plentiful, game fish thrive and grow big. 
I shall describe the nature crawfish first, for 
the reason that it is equal, if not a better imita¬ 
tion of the natural bait than the frog. Also it is 
universally conceded to be the top-notch bass en- 
ticer. Every intelligent bass fisherman knows 
that bass always swallow crabs tail first, for the 
obvious reason that the claws may fold together 
over the head, and not spread out, otherwise the 
foolish bass will find Mr. Crab pinching delicate 
parts of his gullet on the way down. ' For that 
very reason crabs ought to be hooked (but never 
are) by inserting the hook point up through the 
belly coming out at the back half an inch be¬ 
low the eyes. Such a method immediately kills 
the crab, and that is the reason why most anglers, 
including myself, hook crabs by the tail. In so 
doing, fish have much less chance to gorge the 
bait without getting entangled on the leader, 
especially if the hook be larger than the bait. 
After careful study and many trials how best 
to place the hook to hold fast immediately bass 
strike at the crabs tail, I conceived it more per¬ 
fect to have the hook extend a little beyond the 
tail so that the bass striking the bait would swal¬ 
low bait first to make doubly sure of capture. 
Glancing at the side view, angler will notice the 
long, powerful hook, running from the eye on top 
of body out of sight of the bass below, the curve 
bend ingeniously hidden by the crab s tail made 
