This
method of taking fish is practised on a large scale and with
elaborate machinery by men who supply the market. I speak not of
their commercial enterprise and its gross equipage, but of ice-
fishing in its more sportive and desultory form, as it is pursued by
country boys and the incorrigible village idler.
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.
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