40 
Forest and Stream 
16th ANNUAL 
Mid-Winter Handicap 
Target Tournament 
January 8 to 12, 1923. 
$3200.00 money end trophies- 
Weekly trapshooting tournaments start 
November 21st. Six Leggett Ideal 
Traps. Dogs: Annual Field Trial, Janu¬ 
ary 22-27, for money and trophies. 
Golf, tennis, horseback riding, racing 
driving, motoring » airplaning 
CAROLINA HOTEL NOW OPEN 
HOLLY INN OPEN JAN. 8 
Special Rates to shooters during Mid- 
Winter shoot; American plan only. 
For Information: 
General Office, Pinehurst, N. C. 
_ _ 7 
The Shooting Times 
AND 
British Sportsman 
The Sportsman’s Ideal Paper 
deals with 
SHOOTING, FISHING, SPORTING DOGS, Etc. 
SUBSCRIPTION: 21/8 PER ANNUM 
International money orders obtainable at all 
Post Offices 
Specimen Copy forwarded Post Free on 
application. 
74-77 Temple Chambers, London, E. C. 4 
on the ice when a party has been made 
up for the purpose of fishing. Generally 
the fire is made right on the ice, for no 
matter how large the blaze it will not 
quite melt through. The bottom logs 
prevent the water from dulling the 
flame. The holes are cut here and there 
all around the fire at different points. 
At first no results will be had but as the 
fire leaps up and burns steadily the light 
will be noticed in the water and the fish 
will come in. Then the fun commences. 
No matter how cold the night, a fire 
will keep the chill out of the bones. 
Lake trout fishing is followed to a 
great extent in the North and so also 
the whitefish fishing. The taking of the 
whitefish is one that is bothersome to 
most of those who have tried to make 
a go of it in the winter and it may be 
said in truth that the whitefish is one 
of the most difficult of the fishes to catch. 
In the first place the whitefish is notable 
for the fact that it has a mouth so 
tender that if the hook is jerked in too 
determined a manner it will tear out and 
the fish be lost. But this is only one of 
the difficulties that are to be encoun¬ 
tered. If it does take the bait it does so 
in such a delicate manner that unless 
one’s finger tips are sensitive to the 
slight nibble he will scarcely know that 
a fish is touching the bait. Therefore 
fishing for the whitefish is a matter of 
knowing when that nibble comes and 
that is the time to pull up—and when 
you do pull up, the hook must not be 
ripped out by a savage jerk such as most 
fishermen will put into action. 
The average fisherman may probably 
be conscious of the fact that some sort 
of a fish is at the lure but he figures 
that he must wait until the fish seizes 
it in a hungry mouthful and runs with 
it like a pike. That is where the big 
mistake is made. The time to set the 
hook is when that slight nibble is felt. 
Otherwise you may fish until Dooms¬ 
day and not know a fish has been at it. 
Another fault with the man who has 
little results from fishing through the ice 
for whitefish is that the right sort of a 
bait is not used, and, more important 
still, the hook must be of the right size. 
The first impulse of the fisherman is to 
use a large hook without considering 
the small mouth of the fish. In fact one 
should never use a hook over Number 8 
in size. The eight size is plenty big 
enough and will bring to the surface 
any whitefish that one generally runs 
across. But there is a method of rig¬ 
ging up this hook that is not only in¬ 
genious but is the result of long ex¬ 
periments before the one way was found 
that proves fatal to this fish. 
The hook being Number 8 in size 
should have a long shank to it. The 
point of the hook should be needle sharp. 
It should be made of good material. To 
answer best for the purpose the hook 
should be of the snelled order, that is 
to say, whipped to a gut snell. Obtain 
now some bright red yarn and wrap the 
upper part of the shank around with the 
_varn, laying it as far down as the center 
but not so far down as not to leave 
clearance between the hook point and 
the shank. Wrap the yarn on up to the 
gut and finish off by tying it with a silk 
thread. The body at its thickest point 
is but one-fourth of an inch and tapers 
down to each end. The bait is a piece 
of white pork cut in the shape of a 
worm, one-fourth of an inch or so 
through and an inch long. This is 
hooked on in the center, the point of 
the hook being seated so that it is just 
covered by the flesh and so that it may 
be set easily when the nibble comes. 
Just what the fish thinks the bait to be,, 
with the yarn body above it, is ex¬ 
tremely hard to say, but for some reason 
that cannot be explained they take- it in 
preference to any other lure. It is a 
good idea to connect the snelled hook to 
the line by means of a six-foot mist- 
hued leader as this renders the connec¬ 
tion more or less inconspicuous in the 
water. Once a fish of this species is 
caught pull him up steadily, allowing 
him no slack line or he will surely get 
azvay! 
I T is true that there are many crimpy 
days in store for the ice-fisher but if 
he is warmly clad he can laugh at the 
elements and go on his way rejoicing. 
At one time when I was a slave of high- 
topped leather boots I essayed one night 
to stand on the ice and woo the finny 
ones from the depths, with a blizzard 
howling around me. If I didn’t freeze 
my feet it was only because I kept kick¬ 
ing them on the ice, but I learned a 
lesson that night I have never forgotten. 
See that your feet are warmly protected 
and that the ■ shoes, lumbermen rubbers 
or pacs are large enough so that the feet 
are not cramped. With two pairs of 
socks in them one can begin to enjoy 
the ice fields and the harvest below. 
The angler who is wholly in love with 
light tackle and the light lures, and to 
whom summer is the only season for 
fishing, will see nothing in ice fishing. 
But certain it is that the ice fisher not 
only gets the fish when they are in the 
pink of condition but he catches no fish 
with spazvn in them! In that manner he 
destroys very few fish in the aggregate 
and has to work hard, often enough, for 
those that he does get. 
There is a compensation in the 
pleasure one gets in bringing in fish 
when fish are a luxury. 
It is doubtful if one appreciates a 
catch made in summer one-tenth as 
much as one made in winter. 
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