October, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
601 
Another Hint About Fish 
SEE an article in the July issue of your 
valuable paper, written by A. T. Brice, 
of Washington, D. C. (The Priest). 
Would it not be better to bleed the fish 
as soon as it is caught, by sticking a knife 
behind the gills, and let all the blood out, 
then take out the intestines, fill the inside 
with grass, wrap the fish in paper, to seal 
the air away. 
I have carried fish in this manner 150 
miles on a hot day when the thermometer 
registered 92 and the fish were all O. K. 
We had just as well hit a hog on the 
head and not bleed it as to do the same 
to a fish. My experience is that there is 
no meat that will spoil as quick as fish, 
with the blood left in it. 
Let some of the fishermen try this and 
see if their fish does not taste so much 
better. 
H. E. Bindley, Terre Haute, Ind. 
An Eyed-Fly Box 
T HAD long wanted a box to hold the 
eyed flies that I use on my yearly trips 
to the Neversink, but I never felt that I 
could afford the high prices that are asked 
for the best English boxes. So I did the 
next best thing and used my Yankee in¬ 
genuity to make one. I got a tin tobacco 
box—I hesitate to tell you what kind lest 
you should think I am advertising my fa¬ 
vorite smoke, but anyway it opened on the 
side and had a wide flat cover. I scraped 
the paint off this and gave it a coat of a 
varnish made specially for tin—any tinner 
can supply it. Then I took several of the 
longest corks I could purchase and cut off 
several long strips the width of the box 
in length and about a quarter of an inch 
square. At first I used glue to fasten these 
into the box, but it was very hard to make 
them stick permanently. There may be 
a glue that will do it, but finally I had to 
resort to nails, I used the smallest brads 
procurable and drove them into the box 
from the outside, exactly where I wanted 
the strip of cork to lie. Then I pressed 
a strip onto the points of the brads and 
clinched what protruded above the strip 
with a tap of a hammer. To one side of 
the box I soldered a ring (which does not 
show in my drawing) so that the box could 
be slung around my neck on a cord. I 
found this to be a cheap and practical fly 
box. It will hold several dozen flies in 
such a manner as to display them and 
make selection an easy and speedy matter. 
H. L. McKenzie, Yonkers, N. Y. 
A Dead Minnow Wiggler 
OME time when you are looking for a 
different bait try a dead minnow wig¬ 
gler. I have found it a very killing bait. 
Cut off on a slant just in front of the dor¬ 
sal fin and pass the hook out through the 
under part of the body cavity. If in weedy 
waters the hook can be run up through the 
body and it will not catch on grass, etc. 
This minnow has a better motion than a 
whole dead minnow. 
John Grant, Ohio. 
Lace Curtain for Cleaning Worms 
GOT this idea from a Loughborough 
angler, and have used it for about 
fifteen years. This is the method of using 
it. Take a piece of very old 'lace curtain 
of a size that, when wetted and squeezed 
up tight in the hands, will assume the 
dimensions of a cricket-ball, and possibly 
a little larger. Wash out all starch, etc., 
squeeze it up tight, shake loose, and place 
it in the worm bag, which should be eight 
or nine inches deep. Form a slight hollow 
in the top of the lump of curtain and place 
the freshly-dug worms in it. They will 
then make their way through the holes or 
meshes of the curtain to the bottom of 
the bag. Avoid wetting the bag, as the 
worms do not take kindly to the curtain 
at first, and will make their way round 
instead of through it if the bag is also 
moist, but if it is dry they will avoid it 
and keep to the moist curtain and clean 
themselves beautifully in their passage 
through it. I should not dream of going 
back to the use of moss again. I have 
tried engineers’ waste, but could not get 
on with it. I got the impression that the 
worms objected to the dyed strands in the 
‘‘waste.” The small curled up nondescript 
worms of dirty mottled appearance, which 
may be found in almost any soil, become 
a beautiful pink color when cleaned in lace 
curtain, and make an excellent worm for 
clear water worm-fishing for trout. They 
show up well and are tough, and will stand 
almost as much casting as a fly. 
R. L. Tait, Loughborough, Eng. 
My Pork Rind Minnows 
HERE are several good pork rind 
minnows on the market, but I like to 
make my own baits, so rigged up on some¬ 
thing like this. I took a piece of pork 
rind and used all my skill with the phy¬ 
sician’s knife that I got last year from you 
to shape the rind just like a minnow. I 
found that the hook would pull out of the 
plain pork rind, so I used bright colored 
woolen yarn to hold the minnow in shape. 
I threaded a coarse darning needle with 
red yarn and sewed through the minnow 
several times as you can see in my draw¬ 
ing, and then pulled the yarn taut until the 
minnow was bent up a little. The hooks 
should be so threaded that if they pull 
through the rind they will catch on one of 
the yarn stitches. The bent shape of the 
minnow makes it very lively as it is 
dragged through the water. It cuts up all 
the alluring capers of the more expensive 
manufactured patent baits. 
George Worth, Malden, Mass. 
