THE PIKE 



down its capacious throat. All kinds of fishes, 

 even those of its own species, so long as they are 

 not more than half its own size, become its prey. 

 It also devours frogs, mice, rats, and even young 

 ducks. Any of these small animals, or their arti- 

 ficial counterfeits, make good baits for the pike. 

 The spoon and the phantom minnow are excel- 

 lent trolls. Live minnows, shiners, and gudgeon, 

 and the small of all the varieties of chub and 

 whitefish are good killers in the hands of anglers. 

 The dead bait is used for spinning or for trolling 

 with the paternoster, which is a very deadly 

 method of pike-fishing. The greatest success will 

 usually be met with by fishing among lily pads, or 

 by skirting the margin of beds of reeds and rushes. 

 In the shade of these, the pike usually remain to 

 watch out for their prey. 



Writers on pike-fishing differ very widely in 

 the advice they tender about striking the fish. 

 Most of the old authors, and many of the modern 

 ones too, recommend a wait of five minutes or so 

 after a pike seizes the bait, before striking. This 

 is in order to permit the fish to gorge the bait. 

 Then, when the hook is fast in the entrails of the 

 pike, there is not much trick about saving it. It 

 is simply a matter of main strength and the endur- 

 ance of the line. It is much more sportsmanlike 

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