Minnow dipper with automatic partitioning access door
OwnerAndrew J. Clinganinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A dipper for minnows has a cup portion in the shape of a cage-like pentahedral prism of transparent plastic material and is fitted with a normally closed flotation-actuated access door on the rear wall. As the door is closed, a partitioning wall mounted thereon moves inwardly and divides the enclosure into a large upper chamber and a small lower chamber. The forward panel and the rear wall of the enclosure each have a set of downwardly directed teeth along their respective lower and adjacent margins to facilitate fastening a minnow confined within the lower chamber on a fishhook, the forward panel being swingably movable to permit the hooked minnow to be removed therefrom.
Claims3
A minnow dipper comprising:
- a normally enclosed cup in the form of a hollow inverted triangular prism;
- the rectangular rear wall of said cup having an intermediate access opening extending between the sides of the cup and a first array of spaced downwardly extending teeth along the lower margin;
- the rectangular front panel being attached to and substantially covering the forward face of the cup and having a second array of spaced downwardly directed teeth along the lower margin in spatially adjacent registration with said first array of teeth;
- a door disposed to normally close said access opening, hinge means suspending said door from the superjacent body portion and buoyant means fixed to said door;
- said door including a closure portion and a partitioning wall portion extending forwardly into the cup enclosure from the lower margin of said closure portion and dividing the cup enclosure to define an upper chamber and a smaller lower chamber;
- said buoyant means being effective to open said door concurrently with the immersion of said cup in water when said cup is disposed in a predetermined angular relationship with a vertical plane;
- and
- a manipulative handle extending outwardly from the upper margin of said rear wall.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.