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Forest and Stream Letters 
Crappies and a Talk on 
Still Fishing 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
In regard to two articles in the April 
number I would like to make a few re- 
marks and ask a few questions. 
I would like to ask, what becomes of 
the dogfish minnow after the time they 
are three or four inches in length? 
Usually until this time from the time 
the egg or spawn is laid the old fish is 
there. Does the parent leave them then 
or take them away? From the time 
they are three or four inches until they 
are three or four pounds each, I have 
never caught any nor have I heard of 
any one getting any either by hook or 
net. Although one stream and several 
ponds are alive with them, I can only 
tell of one case where a fellow got a 
three-and-one-half pound fish that he 
hooked in the side, which is a rare ex- 
perience with a dogfish. 
I have circled a school of minnows 
when an old dogfish, six or seven 
pounds, would go _ slap-bang right 
through the net. We used the standard 
ten or twenty foot minnow nets. These 
dogfish minnows make fine bass and 
pike bait as they are very tough-skinned 
and long-lived. 
In the April number Mrs. Virginia 
Sherrod had an article on crappies. We 
have a fish here some call crappie; 
others call them speckled or calico bass. 
Personally I don’t think they are the 
same fish. I have heard the pond or 
golden shiners called crappies, but judg- 
ing from Mrs. Sherrod’s description of 
their fighting qualities, no shiner could 
ever live up to that. 
Enclosed is a flash-light picture of 
four or five calico or speckled bass 
weighing about one and one-quarter 
pounds apiece, which are large for this 
location. These are some of a catch I 
made just before dark. If these same 
fish only got as large as our small and 
large-mouth black bass, a black surely 
would be a tame fish in my opinion. 
They are very peculiar about their bit- 
ing, in fact you cannot find a fish that 
takes the bait more deliberately. In 
winter they hit so hard that a two or 
three inch minnow, hook and sinker are 
very apt to disappear; then they pull 
hard, while in summer they run all 

over. In the summer, the smaller the 
minnow the more fish. In fact, one day 
while fishing I ran into a school of these 
fish, the first I ever saw. I thought they 
were blue gills, only they were taking 
my minnows about as fast as I could 
put them on. About that time a man 
said, “Say, buddie, those are calico bass 
and never bite any harder than that.” 
I then got two on the last three min- 
nows I had, that was all the fishing I 
did that day. 
Another ForREST AND STREAM corre- 
spondent mentions still fishing as a 
thing for old men who cannot stand 
the more rugged casting and rowing. 
Also for young boys not experienced 
in fishing. I am not an old grizzly or 
gray-headed man, nor a young one, but 
I still fish with live bait. To my notion 
if one is to do much fishing here in 
southern Michigan or Wisconsin he will 
find still fishing the best method for use 
with live bait. If trolling, a common 
spoon hook with a minnow is as good a 
rig as can be used. With other artificial 
baits, of course, you have to be on the 
move more or less all the time. I have 
stayed in the same place for nearly a 
half day and not got a fish, while in the 
afternoon I got my limit in short order. 
The other fellow was on the move all 
the forenoon and then came back to the 
place near me to catch his fish. Maybe 
he would pick up a few stray ones here 
and there. 
Judge C. C. Kohlsaat (now dead) 
and Mr. Childs, both of Chicago, were 
both great sportsmen and went all over 
for both small and large fish. They 
both declared trolling or casting was 
the only way to get good fish. 
I was in charge of the Judge’s place 
on Lake Geneva for two summers; as a 
result we went fishing a lot. They to 
fish, I to do the work. But as it hap- 
pened on one of the first trips to show 
them where to go. I always use live 
minnows while still fishing and would 
not give ten cents a cart-load for the 
fancy artificial baits and fancy rods. 
Although I have some of them, I very 
seldom use them. Maybe I don’t use 
the right ones at the right time. 
One day the Judge came to me and 
said: “Our minnow tank is about 
empty, you had better go get some bait 
to-morrow. In place of coming down 
here, drive the horse home and go right 
from there.” I did get a nice collection 
of all sizes, and also went to the little 
pier in front of his place and got a nice 
lot of shiners for perch. 
The next day we went fishing. On 
the way to the bay I said to them: 
“Right here is a good place to get some 
perch for bait; sometimes a good perch 
is better than a’chub.” We anchored, 
I dropped a line down with two hooks, 
one with a worm, the other a shiner, the 
water being eighteen or twenty feet 
deep. Then I took my nine-foot flyrod 
with a hundred and fifty foot line, put 
a five-inch chub on, threw it out, took 
my hand line and went to catching 
perch. One of them made the remark, 
“A perch cannot take that big minnow.” 
“No,” I replied, “but a bass or pickerel 
will.” Then and there I heard a few 
laws or supposed-to-be laws on fishing. 
They both declared, “You cannot get 
bass, perch and pickerel in the same 
feeding ground.” Nevertheless in a few 
minutes one of them yells, “Look out 
there or you will break that flimsy rod.” 
“Oh, no, I will not; I have caught lots 
of them on it,” I replied. I had a pick- 
erel of four or five pounds, just the 
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