The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1900-09-22

tne potion. In little while. there will
De faint tug, and then the line will
move slowly through the water Tor a
YARD to- the right or left. The strain
becomes a little stronger, but the still
Hsnerman does not move. He is wait
ing Tor his victim to swallow the bait
or at least to get it so far into his
tnroat that there Is no possibility of
the hooks missing. Then the crucial
moment having arrived, mighty Jerk
Is given, the barb sinks deeply into the
sou mouth or pierces it entirely, there
IS a steady, dragging working of the
! reel' and thirty seconds later a two or
I tnree-pound plymouth founders on
.ne ootto1n OF the boat. The deeply
| urlVen nook is Wrenched free-no mat
Ter II II tears out a chunk Of f1esh-and
the fish is stuffed into sack so that it's
lloppihss may not alarm the other fish
winch may be within radius Of twenty
yaros. Inc still fisher gets a lot of fun
out OF this, and the oftener in an hour
| mat the butchery happens the better
pleased is he. Here is no far-hving
cast of frog, minnow or spoon. cuttine;
through the air for eighty feet and
dropping to the surface with slight
splash. Here is no delicate sending of
the fly, to alight upon the water as
naturally and de1icately as any winged
insect of them all. Here is not even
the circling swing and rush of tho
muscularly-propelled hand-line. If is
just patient, dreamy, thoughtlessly-
thoughtful murder. :
II man wants to still-fish and do #
| rightly, the best thing he can do is tn
get himself pole of swamp cane. six-
| teen feet long, a stout linen line of at
| ieast equal length, a large, keen hook,
some live minnows and a red and green
cork. Then when the fish strikes he
can see the cork go under the water
Wh1ch IN itself is pleasing, can reef the
nook into his quarry with one quick
stroke OF the wrist, and can 1ank
MIN IN, suspended between water and
| SKY ike tiny Mahomet's coffin. This is
quick Work-tWo seconds for the cork
TO disappear, a half-second for the Jerk
ana one second to heave the fish into
the boat. There are times on Wiscon-
SIN forest lakes when man angling in
TINS FASHION would have&an easier time
saving wood in AN August sun, He
soes through more exertion, goes
through 1t faster, keeps it UP longer
ana loses more perspiration than anv
wood pile ever wrung out of any white
man since wood piles were invented
The fellow who does this will tell the
anxious inquirer shat he @is1hayins
sport; and yet if he were hired to do it
at IS a day, he would join labor union
and engineer a strike for longer paw
and shorter hours inside of a week.
Ihere is an uncertainty about still
fishing, however, that lends it an unde.
n1able charm. For instance, a man has
drawn from the bucket a frog long
dead: He hooks it through the lips and
drops 1t overheard, being naturally
anxious to get it out Of sight and smell
as soon as possible The line cuts
slowly through the water. If there is
bass at the end Of it he must be per-
m1tted to rum, because all bass. in
Selling a frog, first grab it by the legs,
carry 1t ten feet away, then reverse it
with swift motion and swallow it
head first. For fear the seeker of food
may be a bass, the angler sits still.
Ihere may be hungry perch bother
ing with the hook, or a pike, or musk
allonge of an inquiring turn Of mind or
dogfsh. Anyhow, the advocate of
the lesson of Izaak Walton never
knows, until he sees his capture, what
it is. If it be a bass, he shakes hands
|
! dogfsh. he assures himself that the
same thing is likely to happen to any.
body, and once more casts his de-
ceased batrachian into the water, hop.
ing that it will return to him after
| few seconds.
i If the swimmers are not hungry anG
bite at irregular intervals of an hour OF
/ so, then the man too lazy to lie on this
grass and hold on with both hands is
or ought to be, happy. All that he has
| to do is to sit still and hold the pole
I and compose an epic or a realistic nov.
ell. If there is breeze ru:fling the lake,
it will wander coolly through his wet
wooden shirt, and If there is not he will
be too busy fighting mosquitoes to care
whether school keeps or not, or the fish
| bite or not. It is possible, in this way,
| to start at o'clock in the morning and
| stay in the boat until o'clock in the
| evening and catch three fish, and imag-
inc that the day has been only two
| hours long.
The man SO situated, particularly if
he has the true still-ishing spirit;
knows nothing of telegraphs or tele-
phones, newspapers or railway stocks!
For time he is divorced from the
1
wrought painfully for his living and
has become veritable loafer, uncon-
cerned with anything except the bust
ness of sitting still and breathing regu-
larly. 1t is not only possible but de-
sirab1y practical to walk down Broad
way New York, or State street, Chica-
go, of September afternoon and pick
out the returned still-f fishers from the
| Ot va "a IA ic Si 1crh
done, for the members of this widely
scattered colony have the sleepy, rested
air with them. The stir of traffic and
reminiscent interest in them. They are
/ always brown and nearly always fat.
and they walk apart from their fellow
men, and now and then they jerk the
| right wrist spasmodically, as though
they had half-pound perch on the
other end of the line and would get it
into the boat or break a hamstring.
They are the thoroughly-rested vaca-
tion-takers, so thoroughly rested in
fact, that it takes them a long time to
get back to normal. The still-isher
looks with tolerant pity upon any 9TH.
er kind of fisher, because he knows that
all other forms of fishing are work. and
he does not board up his house and dis
charge his servants and go away to
work. He wants the green of the trees
to get into him and the lulling lip-lip
/ OF the waves against the boats side.
and the long calm of summer days It
may he said for him that he generally
obtains what he goes for.
After all however. there is but one
! way IN which to be a still-fisher and
extract unlimited good from it. The
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