June 13, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
939 
Crude Fishing Tackle. 
Editin' Forest and Stream: 
I have read in your valuable paper, and else¬ 
where, a great deal in regard to the use of light 
tackle in the capture of nearly all kinds of fish. 
Skilled fishermen will work to land a fish on 
the lightest kind of an outfit; fishing rods that 
weigh six ounces or perhaps less, and line and 
hooks to match. Now, we have had a little ex¬ 
perience in the use of some very coarse fishing 
tackle that may prove of interest to your 
readers. It happened in this way. 
We lay one evening last summer in Plum Gut. 
anchored for the night, after a day of trolling 
for bluefish. The three boats lay together lashed 
side by side, while we were getting our supper 
and talking over our plans for the next day. 
We were in a lot of trouble, and the circum¬ 
stances were these. We had arrived on the 
fishing grounds the night before, and that morn¬ 
ing were up bright and early, for a try at the 
bluefish. The fish were caught by trolling, or 
“towing jigs,” as the fishermen express it. 
These jigs were of bone or metal, with a book 
fast at one end, and the line coming out of the 
other. The boats ordinarily towed about five 
of them; one over the middle of the stern, two 
on the quarters, and two more on outriggers 
reaching out beyond the sides on a short pole or 
stick. There was a big fleet of boats working 
at them that day, and we had had pretty fair 
luck. Along at the last of it, however, the fish 
sank to the bottom, so trolling was useless. 
As we cruised over the ground, waiting for 
them to rise again, if they would, one of the 
boats got out their lead jigs and went to work 
at them on the bottom. This kind of fishing is 
done as follows: The jig, a big, heavy lead 
affair, weighing a pound or more, is let down 
on the reef where the fish are supposed to be 
and quickly drawn up again. If you get a snap, 
you may get a fish and you may not, but ordi- 
1 narily you get him. It is very hard work, but 
about the only thing to do after the fish have 
sunk. We watched this man as he tried this 
1 trick, when suddenly he fastened on to a good 
one and saved him. We had one or two of 
these jigs in the boat and did likewise, taking 
some four or five fish, when we lost one of the 
jigs, catching it on the bottom. Soon we lost 
another, leaving us but one for two men to 
work with. 
At this time we all left for our anchorage. As 
we lay there after a hearty supper, we took a 
little inventory of our stock of lead jigs and 
found that our companions were in about the 
same fix as we were; in fact, there were only 
four of them for six men to fish with the next 
day. What to do we did not know. It was 
twelve miles up to Greenport, the nearest place 
where we could get them, and we found by 
inquiry that the rest of the fleet anchored near 
us were in the same fix as we were. Now what 
could we do? At home we could easily make 
what we wanted; in fact, that was the way we 
generally did do, as we could make them cheaper 
than we could buy them. What we did was to 
run lead around a hook imbedded in a sand 
mould and trim it off to suit. Here we had 
no tools, no place to melt the lead, or any of 
the conveniences, for the job. 
One of the fellows said, “Now, if any of you 
can melt some of those sinkers, I think I can 
make a mould, and we can make some jigs right 
here.” Then another man suggested using the 
frying-pan over our little alcohol stove to melt 
the lead in. The mould maker at once went to 
work on his mould, while the rest of us began 
to try the melting part. He took an old tin 
cracker box and a hammer and went to work, 
trying to make something that would hold the 
lead in some shape. This he soon did. We did 
not have such good fortune, as the little stove 
was hardly equal to the emergency; it was not 
hot enough. Then we bethought ourselves of 
some heavy lead sinkers that we had in the 
boat and by dint of much pounding and winding 
on of copper wire that we had for use around 
A CRUDE BLUEFISH JIG. 
the engine, we fashioned the jig as shown in 
the accompanying cut. We made two. By this 
time it was bedtime, so we gave up the job and 
turned in. 
The next morning, getting under way with 
the rest of the fleet, we again sought the fish. 
At first they bit well, that time at the top of 
the water, until we had a nice mess to take home 
with us, when they sank. The boats began to 
get at the bottom fishing again and we with the 
rest. We had been a little fearful that our rude 
contrivance would not fool the fish, but, to our 
surprise, we found that for all practical pur¬ 
poses it was as good as any, and we took as 
many on this old sinker hammered out as on 
the regular jig that we had left. It was hard 
work, but we kept at it until we added a num¬ 
ber to those already in the boat, when we gave 
it up and started for home. 
If it is ever my good fortune to go bluefishing 
again, I am thinking that our boat for one will 
have gear enough on board, so we shall not 
have to sit up nights and hammer lead sinkers 
into fishing jigs. E. M. Leete. 
Silkworm Gut aad Eyed Flies. 
A fishing tackle dealer is credited with the 
statement that if he were worth a million dol¬ 
lars he would have every mattress in his home 
stuffed with the thin, spiral ends that are cut 
from silkworm gut when leaders and snells for 
hooks are being made. But if he were worth 
so much money, he would probably find that 
there are some things money cannot procure—at 
least at once—and he would have to wait a long 
time before his wish could be realized. 
“A Brooklyn man named Lee,” said the dealer 
in question, “made such a mattress over thirty 
years ago, and it is as springy and comfortable 
as it was the day it was made. He was in the 
business of snelling and selling hooks, and tt 
took him ten years to accumulate enough mater¬ 
ial for this ‘thousand dollar’ mattress, although 
at that time he worked up more silkworm gut 
than any other man in this country and em 
ployed scores of girls at tying hooks.” 
Silkworm gut is received from the importers 
in hanks of one hundred strands, and approxi¬ 
mately one-fourth of each strand is wasted, as 
the ends are crinkly, flat and worthless from 
being wound round pegs during the drying pro¬ 
cess following the original drawing. 
The large increase in the demand for all sizes 
of gut, and the steady increase in the prices 
asked by the English exporters have rendered 
almost prohibitive the salmon sizes, causing a 
demand for combination leaders; that is, with 
the upper half of the leader made up of three 
strands of the smaller and longer sizes twisted, 
then single gut tapering to the point. In this 
way the desired size is had at much lower cost 
than if single gut were used throughout. The 
treble gut is spliced or knotted, and will out¬ 
wear the single strands, but is not so satisfactory 
as, when thoroughly saturated, its size expands 
and the separate strands bulge out here and 
there, making it less neat and trim than single 
gut. 
The eyed hook, too, is gradually replacing the 
snelled hook in America, particularly for trout 
flies, and although the price of gut has not been 
instrumental in this, it has had some effect. One 
of the principal reasons for the change that is 
taking place is found in the fact that snelled 
flies cannot be soaked without messing the flics 
more or less, and it is always difficult to soften 
the snell at the head of the fly, which is pro¬ 
tected by shellac. As a result the snells are 
easily snapped off at this point, either in cast¬ 
ing or in playing a trout. 
Another reason is that the snells of flies, which 
may have been packed away in moth proof re¬ 
ceptacles for a year or two, are often found to 
have deteriorated to such an extent as to be 
worthless, when the flics themselves are perfectly 
good. 
Finally, the eyed flies are so much easier to 
carry, in a little box or book, and may be at¬ 
tached to the leader at once, as there are no 
snells to be soaked. If more than one eyed fly 
is to be used, these are attached to the leader 
with short tippets of gut made for the purpose, 
and which may be kept in the leader box and in 
condition for immediate use. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any nerusdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
