Angling and how to Angle: A Practical Guide to Bait-fishing, Trolling, Spinning and Fly-fishing by Joseph Tom Burgess

Author:Joseph Tom Burgess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frederick Warne
Published: 1895-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

Fig. 55.

their way through the aperture B into the bottle, where they are joined by their companions by the dozen. This bottle is invaluable, though awkward to carry about. Minnows may be kept alive in a running stream in a wire-work box. They should be carried alive in a bait-can.

Salted minnows are the alternative if live ones are not to be had. They are chosen for this purpose a size larger than is necessary, as they shrivel up somewhat in the brine. They should be left in the salt some twelve hours, and then preserved in a glass bottle, well sealed. Or they may be preserved in spirits of wine, as recommended for dace and gudgeon. This plan has, however, the drawback of being expensive.

♦ Messrs. Alfred & Son, Moorgate Street, London, sell these glass minnow-traps.

A most deadly way of spinning with a small natural minnow (which should have its fins and tail cut off), is to cast it as a fly is cast. Select a minnow about an inch in length, put it on the spinning-flight as described with Fig. 53, only of very small size.

No lead is used on the trace itself, as the small belly lead pushed down the minnow's mouth is sufficient. The lip-hook having been passed through both lips, the minnow is curved and the upper triangle fixed in the body so as to keep it curved to make it spin. The trace should be about four feet of fine stained gut with three small steel swivels. An old lo-foot fly-rod with the top joint shortened by some six or eight inches answers admirably for casting a minnow overhead in this way. The reel-line should be fine and the rings of the rod of the "Bridge" or snake pattern. Although the bait is cast overhead as a fly is cast, the line must be managed very differently; if the angler is fishing from a boat he pulls some line off the reel, and having drawn up the bait so that the top swivel is just under the top of the rod, he holds it {i.e, the rod, with bait hanging from it) straight out behind, then with a forward motion of the hand (not unlike the action in throwing a stone, but not with such force, of course), slow at first and then faster, the bait is brought sharply forward and the line released at the same instant, so that the slack line can run freely through the rings as it is pulled out by the impetus given to the bait by bringing the rod forward as described above. The rod should be kept pointed to the spot aimed at—or rather the spot it is seen the bait is travelling to, for not every spinner can cast his bait just where he wants it to go, and directly the minnow touches the water the line must be pulled in with the left hand, while the right gives a series of little pulls at the bait

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