1180 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Does This Look as Though the Bass Season Was Over? 
baits will prove their worth at one time or an¬ 
other, under water and top water plugs, minnows, 
frogs and even heavy spoons will all get fish. 
Try all kinds and depths of water. The fish 
are ranging widely and are apt to be any place, 
sometimes a number being taken in places where 
none have been all summer long. But as a rule 
the old favorite haunts are the best, at the base 
of deeply set stumps, particularly where there 
are roots under water, in which places the bass 
hide in wait for unsuspiciously passing minnows 
and other small fry of all descriptions, and under 
overhanging ledges out of the bright rays of the 
sun. These are the spots the big small mouth 
bass generally occupy. 
If they are not there then find a muddy end 
of the lake where the pickerel weeds grow tall 
and extend far out into the water. 
Very likely the bass have chased schools of 
small fish up into these places, or if not, then 
one can be almost sure of a large mouth bass or 
two, and in the cool waters the large mouth will 
put up a grand fight, particularly if it be a 
four pounder, which is very apt to be the case 
at this season. 
There is a profitable way of taking bass at this 
time that may be used by the non-casters and 
by those who do not care to pull a heavy boat 
around all day trolling. 
The fish particularly dote on a small yellow 
frog if it be found by them in the deep water, 
and if it can be served to them in the proper way 
very likely a good catch of fish will result. 
On a slightly windy day (common enough in 
October) it is often possible to drift with hardly 
a stroke of the oars the whole length of the 
shore, or mayhap directly across the lake trailing 
a frog deep down in the Water. A sinker is 
needed which should be attached to the line about 
three feet above the hook. 
If the frog be very small, one of the smallest 
sized keel sinkers will be heavy enough. If it be 
large, lead should be used in proportion so that 
it will float at a good depth, well down on the 
bottom, no matter what the speed of the boat or 
how deep the water. 
A bait casting rod, or at least a short, rather 
stiff one, is the best to use, for the frog being 
at quite a depth it places decided strain on the 
rod, necessitating a heavy strike when the fish 
takes hold. 
Use a leader at least three feet long and a 
sproat hook of a size commensurate with the 
size and strength of the frog. Do not weight 
the frog down with a great hook so that it will 
be unable to move. The more the frog kicks the 
more likely will it look to the fish. 
It is sometimes well to select the entrance to 
some cove and drift directly across it from point 
to point, the fish going in and coming out of it 
can be picked up very handily at times. 
Wherever a high cliff is encountered on shore 
let the boat drift in silently and get the frog well 
down at the base and close in to it. These cliffs 
are the haunts of the big fellows, the ones that 
never seem to be hungry except in the cool fall 
days, but now they will consider a small yellow 
frog a great luxury and pick it up readily enough. 
Crawfish can be used in the same way at this 
season, but they really seem to do better in the 
deep weeds rather than along the rocky shores. 
Incidentally a great many of the weeds will be 
picked up on the hook, but this can not be helped, 
the bad must be taken with the good and if the 
fish be there one must get the bait there also, 
weeds or no weeds. 
Sometimes while casting this method of drift¬ 
ing with a frog may be employed, thus killing 
two birds with one stone, as it were. The frog 
line may be let out directly over the stern of the 
boat, the rod resting across the seats with the 
tip well down and out of harms way. Quite 
often a bass that refused to take the casting bait 
will be picked up by the trailer. The casting 
bait does not cover the deep water near and 
under the boat, but starts up at a decided angle 
when still quite a distance away and is on or 
near the surface for the last ten feet of its jour¬ 
ney, and it may be that right down in this deep 
water under the boat there are several fish that 
refuse to rise to the surface. 
In that case they will almost invariably take 
the frog, which comes along after the boat has 
passed. 
| CHAMPION LADY ANGLER | 
MRS. BRIMLEY'S UNUSUAL 
CATCH AT NEW RIVER INLET 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In your “Records of Women Experts,” on 
page 1155 of the September issue, you have 
overlooked a 33-pound channel bass caught by 
Mrs. H. H. Brimley in 1914 and recorded and 
pictured in Forest and Stream for August 29, 
1914. 
Our club boasts of several women hunters 
and fishermen, and I am enclosing photo of a 
large sting ray caught by Mrs. Brimley at New 
River Inlet on August 23. This fish measured 
forty inches across, forty inches long in the 
body, with a total length of six feet. It pulled 
my sixty-pound scales down flat with about a 
third of the weight still on the porch floor. Some 
onlookers called it a hundred-pound fish, but 
The Lady and the Tiger—Revised Version 
we finally compromised on eighty pounds, though 
I believe it was heavier than that. It was caught 
on a fifteen-thread “Original Cuttyhunk” line, 
six-foot hickory surf tip and 27-inch hickory 
spring butt. 
When finally beached in the “suds,” it re¬ 
quired two of us to gaff the fish, its tail and 
dangerous sting making caution a requisite in 
the work. The “sting” when cleaned and dried 
measures exactly six inches, a dangerous weapon. 
H. H. Brimley. 
WHO HAS A MAN-EATING SHARK FOR 
SALE? 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The Sept, animal I would say was a Sea Cow. 
J. F. Kepler, Librarian, Chicago Athletic As¬ 
sociation, Chicago Ill. 
P. S. Could you tell me where I could buy a 
man-eating shark, alive or mounted? 
