Snaring Fish

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By Dan Beard

Catfish may be chummed for; that is, attracted by bait cut up and dropped through the hole in the ice. The bait will attract many other fish, which can be snared with a slip-noose made of fine copper or brass wire and attached to the end of a line. There is nothing alarming in the looks of this instrument, and a fish will not notice the snare until it finds the fatal noose tightly drawn about its body. 

It requires a little practice to snare fish successfully.  I well remember my first attempt.  A large "mud sucker" was discovered under an overhanging bank.  Cautiously I crept to the edge of the stream, and with trembling, yet careful hand, I let the snare glide gently into the water.  The fish did not move; by degrees I slipped the noose over the comical slippery head of the creature, and with a mighty jerk landed--not the fish, but my snare in the boughs of a tree that overhung the water.  I was thunder-struck when I discovered that the fine wire of the snare had cut the fish completely in halves, and as the muddy water, stirred up by the commotion beneath, rolled away down stream, I beheld one-half of the " mud sucker " with the puckering mouth still moving, and the other half with its tail flapping in the water beneath. 

It requires experience to learn just how hard to pull on a snare to catch a fish and hold it without breaking the line or cutting the game.

ABHB