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

Pheasant, ThoughtIess Murder
77N HERE there is one fv
II ~ caster there are four bait
~ ~ II casters, and where there
WI II are TOUR bait casters there
wv are sixty-four still fishers.
Still fishing requires no
oexter1ty. Therefore, the ranks of it's
Votar1es are twenty deep. There have
peen always still fishers since there
were hsh. Noah, perched on the sharn-
Iv-angled roof Of his ark and wildly
swinging hand line with three hook
On IL, was a still fisher. Cleopatra. on
the Nlle was another Of them. Praed's
Red Fisherman" did a little casting
out ne permitted his hook to dane1e sn
that Nell Gynne should snap at the
torohet palt. On every sunny English
stream Tor five centuries past the still
usher mas had sway. He has it vet. for
me man who goes among the modern
Ensllshmen looking for casters will
nave MS return passage paid by the
consul at Liverpool. Champion stin
nsherman of them all was old Izaak. If
some astral pre-embodiment of the flu
lure had SHOWN him a quadruple-mul-
Iplylng reel he would have toppled
over III dead faint and been too busy
thinking thereafter to write anything.
Inc boy with bent pin and wriggling
worm, splitting on his lure and carefully
cropping 1T into the deeper places of
Inc swallow brook that runs from the
nils down into the peaceful valley, is a
SUN fisherman. Perhaps he may live to
grow up and run a grocery store in a.
:,
nsh until he. dies. Everybody, in fact,
4 VINO hshes and does not know how to
fish is a still fisher. ',s.-
This art consists simply in selecting
bait and dropping it into the water
and waiting for something to come
along and take hold of it. It is a re-
Elective art and, if persisted in, pro-
duces chronic sonnolence Lawyers
who leave the heated city in July and
spend their vacations in still fishing go
to sleep in the court rooms and wake
suddenly to "object' to something thew
have heard in their dreams Physi-
clans, Wearied Of night cabs and at
tempts to collect fees, spend thirty days
Where still fishing is rife, and for six
weeks afterWard prescribe morphta in
place of quinine. Newspaper men
their nerves worn little fine by twen-'
ty-hVe hours work day eight days in
the week, siumber for q half month in.
the lotus land Of the bobbing cork and
the untaut line, and when they return
to the office are eminently fitted to
write editorials on the southwark
march of the Balkan frontier. If De
Quincy had been a still fisher he
would never have penned his Con
fessions.' He would have found sur
cease from toothache and utter rest in
other things than laudanum. Also, If
Bresci had followed this gentle calling
he would have stuffed his largest perch
and sent it to Humbert as a token OF
flial regard. There are no Anarchists
among the still fishers. Being an An
archist is too much like work s.:
The deadliness of - this method, as
compared with fly casting, is supreme.
The still fisherman will catch more fish
at almost any time than the perfected
scientific sharp will be able to get out
hundred feet against the wind, and
sometimes he will catch forty-four hun
dred times as many fish. His success
does not depend upon the selection of
gaudily colored artificial simulations OF
Insects that were never on sea or land,
nor on the speed and regularity with
which he is able to- drag a glittering
spoon and choked, sombre frog
through the water. 1t depends upon
whether or not the fish is hungry, says
an Ashland (Wis.) correspondent of the
New York Sun. If they are hungry, he
yanks them in by the cord and if they
are not hungry, nobody can catch them
with anything whatever. Whether they
are hungry or not depends generally
c,to - 4, -
dark of the moon, in the time of moon
less nights, the underwater feeders are
hungry because. they cannot see to
swim and feed after the sun goes
down. In the light of the moon, when
there is little difference below the sur
face of the lake or river between dark
and daylight, they eat all night long,
and, consequently, when the fisherman
gets after them the next day. they take
no interest in anything he has to offer
There is no doubt that fish are hu-
morsome and that they prefer one bait
to another at various times with no ap-
parent reason therefor. The still fish
erman, to be successful, must thus
have variety of foods from which tc
tempt, just as the fly fisherman carries
his book stuffed with dozen standard
flies and fifty others that are merely
variations OF the standard and of nc
practical service. Of all the American
game fish, probably the Oswego bass
or green bass, or big-mouthed bass, is
the most omnivorous and general feed.
er. Ordinarily it may be predicted
safely that it is hungry, and if it is no
it's lack Of appetite is due either to the
fact that it has fed all night long, o.
else is i'll. For this rea son, on Western
lakes and rivers, the plymouth is thu
swimmer most sought by the still fish
er. With this angler, weight of catcl
I. and number are superior to quality, ant
when the Oswegos are hungry the.
may be hooked and jerked or reeled il
as fast as the man with the rod cares
to work. To the voracious and hungry
plymouth all bats look alike, so thai
they have meat in them and smell t.
them. Worms, salt pork, dead min.
nows, dead frogs, old venison, chicken
entrails and pieces cut from other bass
are seductive to its NAV. Drop the
bait over the edge of the boat, or dan.
gle 1t from bank, and wait until the
exploring glutton hangs himself; thai
is the secret. So far as the sport of II
is concerned, it is good deal like
shooting mans COW in his back yard
or fishing in pond filed with German
carp; but if the still fisher likes it, il
is not to be contended that any one else
has the right to object.
Still fishing for big mouth bass /.
practiced generally from boat OF
some small inland lake. The man q,
the oars paddles lazily along the banl
until he finds likely-looking hole
Ine man on the rear thwart is read,
with steel rod, a decent reel, larg