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Side 62 av 112
You choose for this pastime a pond where the ice is not too thick,
lest the labour of cutting through should be discouraging; nor too
thin, lest the chance of breaking in should be embarrassing. You
then chop out, with almost any kind of a hatchet or pick, a number
of holes in the ice, making each one six or eight inches in
diameter, and placing them about five or six feet apart. If you
happen to know the course of a current flowing through the pond, or
the location of a shoal frequented by minnows, you will do well to
keep near it. Over each hole you set a small contrivance called a
"tilt-up." It consists of two sticks fastened in the middle, at
right angles to each other. The stronger of the two is laid across
the opening in the ice. The other is thus balanced above the
aperture, with a baited hook and line attached to one end, while the
other end is adorned with a little flag. For choice, I would have
the flags red. They look gayer, and I imagine they are more lucky.
When you have thus baited and set your tilt-ups,--twenty or thirty
of them,--you may put on your skates and amuse yourself by gliding
to and fro on the smooth surface of the ice, cutting figures of
eight and grapevines and diamond twists, while you wait for the
pickerel to begin their part of the performance. They will let you
know when they are ready.
A fish, swimming around in the dim depths under the ice, sees one of
your baits, fancies it, and takes it in. The moment he tries to run
away with it he tilts the little red flag into the air and waves it
backward and forward. "Be quick!" he signals all unconsciously;
"here I am; come and pull me up!"
When two or three flags are fluttering at the same moment, far apart
on the pond, you must skate with speed and haul in your lines
promptly.
How hard it is, sometimes, to decide which one you will take first!
That flag in the middle of the pond has been waving for at least a
minute; but the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and
down more violently: it must be a larger fish. Great Dagon! There's
another red signal flying, away over by the point! You hesitate,
you make a few strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and
dart the other way. Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with
too short a cross-stick, has been pulled to one side, and disappears
in the hole. One pickerel in the pond carries a flag. Another
tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat upon the ice. The bait has
been stolen. You dash desperately toward the third flag and pull in
the only fish that is left,--probably the smallest of them all!
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