The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1900-08-28

COMFORT and
INTENSE JOY.
Lazy Fishing Ways on the
Upper Mississippi River.
The YIELD OF THE "TROT" LINE.
Fish Hook Themselves at Night While
Indo|snt Angler Sleeps.
FIGHT FOR AWHILE AND THEN DESlST
Many Good Catches Are Also Made With
Hand Lines on Which Bells Give the
Lazy Fisherman a Signal.
FIGHT FOR AWHILE AND THEN DESlS1

Ferryville, Wis. Aug. Z The man who
comes to the upper Mississippi river
country for fishing in the middle sum
mer time may feel disinclined 10 the ex-
ertion involved by rowing a boat ten
miles I'm order 10 reach the various wing
dams from whose artificial abutments
bass are most readily killed, or he may
not care TO wade near TO the edges of the
sandbars In Suffering for pickerel.
He may object to risking miasma In
seining or gigging for fish at night, or he
may be subject 10 sunstroke, and so find
all of the daylight hours dangerous on
the water. II so, he has still the hand
line. the trot line. and the crawfish line at
his command, and he may have good
time with any one or all of them.
The trot line. so called because there is
no trot connected with il, nor even
slow walk. for that matter, is essentially
a night line, though IL is sometimes used
with poor success in daylight. 1t is made
OF woven cotton as thick as a womans
little finger. an II varies in length from
uIty leet 10 OvU ydrus.
Its length depends entirely upon the
stretch OF water II is desired to cover. At
intervals of yard or so shorter and finer
lines, three feet long, are attached to 1t.
and these shorter lines, which hang
straight down, bear large. strong hooks.
The hooks are baited with salt pork for
bass. with bits OF blackbirds for pickerel
with chicken entrails for catfish. and
with corn meal made into paste and mix
ed with loose cotton for buffaloes. A
slough Is selected that is hundred yards
wide and ten feet deep In It's centre.
One end OF the trot line is tied to a tree
on the mainland; the other end is carried
over and tied 10 a tree on an island. When
this is done the other parts of the line
sag down into the water. burying the at
tached hooks. This task completed toward
the close of eevening twilight, the fisher
man goes home and to bed, betting with
himself meanwhile as to what he will
find I'm the morning.
He is up at daylight. and on the banks
of the slough where his small skin has
lain through the night, with it's nose in
the mud. He pushes of. taking hold OF
the trot line with his left hand, and so
works his way along 1t. lifting IL at In
tervals. rebaiting the hooks, II he in
tends to have II In the water during the
hanged themselves during the dark hours.
YIELD OF THE TRoT LINE.
1t IL not an unusual thing for one trot
line to show at daylight samples OF ev-
cry fish which swims I'm Mississippi wat
ers, and the excitement of 1t comes from
the fact that when the fisherman has
taken of pound bass he does not know
but that two yards further on he may
run into gar that weighs twenty pounds
or a ten-pound bluecat with fins as sharp
as razors. or dogfish, or what not.
Il Is characteristic of the fish caught on
a trot line that when they find them
selves to be hooked at some time In the
night they fight for while. and then de-
sist They lie perfectly still until disturb
ed, but alive. When the man comes to
find what the morning has brought him,
these fish are perfectly fresh, thoroughly
rested. and prepared TO cut up all sorts OF
didoes.
There is no way In which they may be
played and so tired out before they are