The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1889-03-15
WINTER FISHING.
HOW IT Is CARRIED ON IN
FROZEN LAKES AND RIVERS
The Outfit Required and the Way
of Catching the Fish Described
- The Indian Way - Cut
ting Holes in the Ice.

The winter weather that seals up lake
and creek so that the coy troutand sport
i've bass are safe from the wiles of fisher
men, provides another form of sport,
Says David Wechsler, in the Brooklyn
Citizen. Although the deceptive fly
! cannot be cast upon the water and the
gilded spoon can no longer be trolled
beneath its surface to lure the credulous
fish to its doom, yet fishing through the
ice remains.
Many small lakes IN different sections
of the country are well stocked with
pickerel, and these gamey fish afford ex-
cellent sport. They are hungry fish,
always ready to bite, and once hooked,
make stubborn fight before they sur
render. The method of their capture is
not difficult. Learned originally from
the primitive dweler by the lake shores
the dusky Indian-it has been i'm
proved upon by the arts of civilization
and is now a popular sport through the
Eastern and Middle States. 1t has also
many followers in the West. The few
Indians remaining in Wisconsin and
Michigan still fish in their own way, and
earn good living from the sale of their
captures to white men who ship them to
Milwaukee and Chicago markets. They
cut hole of about eighteen inches in
diameter in the ice, and build a rough
house Of boughs over the spot. The
house is intended to make it dark at the
opening in the ice. The Indian pro-
vides himself with rough iron spear
and live minnow attached So a string.
he then lies fat on the ice. The min
now attracts the larger fish, but before
they can close their Jaws on it, the spear
descends and the fish is captured. The
Indians get only two and three cents
pound for the fish, but they frequently
make dollar day.
The paraphernalia of a summer angler
rods, reels, leaders, flies and NESTS
not required for the winter sport. The ex-
pense of an elaborate outfit is accordingly
saved, and as the finesse of the anglers
art-the casting of the fy-is not EN-.
ployed, those who are not experts, can
en- oy the sport. The apparatus neces-
sary consists of about forty short lines,
provided with strong hooks, and at
tached to a reel made out of a piece of
wood. Then a tip-up is required for
every line that IS to be set. This is the
continuance that signals the fisherman
when fish is caught.
There are dozens of ways of making
tip ups. Every old fisherman thinks he
knows a little more about them than
anyone else, and will take great pains to
inform every novice Just how the tie-ups
should be made One of the oldest and
most popular methods is to place a round
stick fiat on the ice and so that it reaches
across the hole. Then cut stick with
a crotch in it. One limb of the crotch
should be six inches long and the other
twelve inches long. Attach the line TO
the longer one, and place the shorter so
that it will fit over the cross stick with
its butt resting on the ice and having a
red rag tied to it to serve as a flag. When
there is bite the flag goes up aad no
tiies the fisherman.
Another device is made out of a half
inch pine board. A piece eighteen inches
long and tapering from three inches
wide at one end to one inch wide at the
other is cut out A three-quarter inch