River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1903-10-15
FISH THAT BREAKS THE LINE.
The Chances Are Ten to One That
He VIII Get Rid of the Inn
bedded Hook.

The Chances Are Ten to One Th@t
He viii Get Rid of the Inn
bedded Hook.
The questions as TO how long hook
will stay in fish that has broken line
and escaped and as to whether or not
it will prove fatal depend for answer
a great deal on the kind of fish and the
character of water in which it is hooked,
In very weedy water, says the New
York Sun, it happens sometimes that
two or three feet of line still attached TO
the hook wrap about bunch OF stems
and hold the fish a prisoner until 1t
starves to death or dies from exhaustion
consequent upon its efforts to break
away. In weedy water where there IS
no line attached to the hook the weeds
will often rub the hook from its place in
an hour or two, the fish making no con-
scious effort to get rid OF it. In lakes
or ponds that have rocky bottoms f1sh
with a hook in its jaw will sink to the
stones and endeavor to rub the hook out
against the pebbles and sand and II vii
succeed almost invariably.
If the lure has been deeply swallt wed
and the hook is fastened in the fishs
outlet 1t must depend for relief entirely
upon the hook working out or dropping
out through the decay of the flesh i'm
mediateIy around it. This will happen
generally in less than week and II the
fish has lasted SO long it will probably
recover. Sometimes the body OF hsn
is picked up floating which has hook
fastened so in it's throat that there was
no passage for food and fish hooked In
this manner is most inevitable doomed.
There is a great difference in the, Vi
tally of fishes The large-mouth bass,
though less active and game than the
small-mouth, will stand twice the injury
and will live out of water almost twice
as long. If man will put three large
mouths and three small-mouths on
stringer and hang them in deep water
overnight, in the morning all OF tne
Iarge-mouths will be as fresh and lively
as when captured; one of the small
mouths will almost certainly be dead
and the other two will die during the
day if not released.
Muskallonge live long time out OF
water and Withstand serious wounds;
w2ll-eyed pike die quickly. man on
foot may transport muskallonge for
mile or two from one lake to another,
simply by hanging them upon string
and toting them. When they are thrown
into the water at the end of the journey
they swim away and are perfectly salts
fed and fit
MI. IL n 10 oil
most from a scratch. Sometimes they
are taken from hooks not deeply seated
and thrown back Immediately, but in
little while they come to the surface
dead.
Not long go William Kenyon, of Cal
cago, fishing on Round lake in Sawyer
county, Wis, hooked a 12-pound musk
allonge on one of the floating wood bats
turned out in Dowagiac, Mich. He
fought the fish to the boat side and then
lost it by the line parting just above the
lure. He had time to see that one Of
the hook gangs was fastened in the
right corner of the musky's mouth, and
the other had Topped over and caught
on top of the skull by one barb. Five
days later another fisherman found a
muskallonge floating among some bull
rushes on the other side of the lake It
was the Kenyon muskallonge and had
apparently been dead for day or two.
The lure was still in it's mouth and the
second gang was still fastened on top
of the head
The man was curious to see what had
killed the fish, so he took it in and start
ed to remove the hooks He found not
only that the cylinder of wood to which
the hooks were attached had become
fastened crosswise of the mouth, pre-
venting the entrance of food, but in some
way the two points of the gang on top
of the head had been driven in so as to
pierce the skull. This was done proba-
bly, by the maddened fish running into
a rock or submerged stump.
On the other hand, muskallonge have
been taken which have carried deeply
bedded spoons of large size for weeks
without suffering much apparent DIS
comfort. 1t is certainly true that COM
paratively few escaped fish die from the
hooks they carry because large num-
bers Of them get away each year, and it
is rare that one dead is found Many
fish are taken which show on close ex-
animation the scars of old hook wounds.
BEECHNUTS AND WILD GAME.