Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1903-07-30
DEADLY FISH TACKLE
Fish Have No Show For Their
Lives Now Days.
SURE TO GET CAUGHT IF THEY BITE
Skill Not Required To Land Them
Hook of Our Daddies Versus
Diaboifcal Machines

Down in Kalamazoo county old fish
ermen with sporting proclivities are
very much worried because the lakes
are becoming depopulated and every
year fish are growing scarcer. This
is true to a considerable extent all
over Michigan. They say: "the fish
hog is not the only enemy of the fin
ny tribe Deadly tackle as well as
the desire to make big showing for
the mere sake of killing fish are
largely responsible"
The ingenuity of good many men
is turned toward the inventing and
perfecting of cruel and unsportsman-
like devices for taking fish. and each
year the shops show greater variety
of them the hook of our daddies WIS
a plain barbed affair, surmounted
sometimes with piece of tin, which
was the first attempt at the artificial
minnow. They caught good fish and
caught them in decent way.
If their hooks became tangled in
weeds they worked them loose or cut
the lines, and when they went to camp
at night they had the satisfaction of
knowing that they had captured their
catch fairly.
Against the single weedless hook
there is nothing TO be said. 1t opposes
single point to the fish, which is fair
enough. Following the single hook,
weedless or not, came the hook gangs,
and they are indefensible.
The simplest and most usual form
of them is made of three hooks, set
back TO back and tailed on to a spoon
or phantom minnow. Often two of
their points enter the fish at once and
they are so arranged as to catch al
most infallibly from whatever point
it makes its rush.
This is putting three hooks against
one fish and would seem to be enough
of advantage for man to take, but
following them came the minnows and
spoons which had three hooks at the
tail. a gang of three on the right side
of the lure, and another gang of three
on the left side. That makes nine
hooks against one fish.
Not content, the inventors proceed
ed to evolve a diabolical machine
called the "eagle." The hooks are set
about powerful interior spring, the
points hidden in the tail of the lure.
When that tail is grasped the spring
is released and the barbs are thrown
outward with great force, imbedding
themselves in the bass mouth.
This concern does away with all
skill, strength and quickness of wrist
on the part of the angler. He has
only to trail his lure through the wa
ter. When the bass strikes, the spring
does the rest.
|. The hooks are so large and are
thrown in so strongly that the fish
stunds no chance at all to shake itself
free or work itself free. This year
we have the ''eagle" spring not only
in the tail of the lure but along it's
sides, and any bass which noses that
fatal bait is a victim, whether the
man with the rod knows anything
about angling or not.
There is also large concern with
long shanked hooks whose points are
spread wide apart and the bait is in
their center. 1t is intended for still
fishing. When the bass puts in its
head to seize the minnow, or crawfish,
or frog, these three hooks come down
on ii viciously and hook il through
the top and sides of the head, some.
times penetrating the spinal cord oI
the brain pan and killing instantly.
This sort of arrangement is just one
remove from stick of dynamite
The fish are having harder time of /,
with each year and the use of these
devices goes long way toward ex
planning why certain once fruitful
waters are now nearly fished out.