78 ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



very quaint treatise. Trolling is the kind of artifice that 

 suits a half-indolent man, or one who, through age or 

 inclination, does not care to enter into the fatiguing labour 

 which is involved in a day's spinning. 



Trolling is an appropriately effective method of angling 

 for pike in a river. The angler, with bag and gaff slung at 

 his back, sallies forth on a winter day, crackling the frozen 

 snow, perhaps, beneath his feet as he trudges to the 

 river-side. His trolling bait may be dropped here and 

 there into holes and eddies, the proceeding being just 

 sufficient to keep his blood in active circulation, the 

 exercise enough to bring all his muscles into play, and 

 yet all being conducted with a dignified action that adds not 

 a little to the enjoyment of the sport. There is also some- 

 thing particularly entertaining in the manner in which the 

 movements of the pike are to be studied when trolling. 



You have thrown your bait out ten, twelve, or fifteen 

 yards, as the case may be ; it sinks to the bottom, and by 

 a series of gentle draws up and down and ever onwards, it 

 is gradually worked towards you, the line meanwhile being 

 neatly coiled on the ground at your left side, unless you 

 have acquired the art of casting, Nottingham style, from 

 the winch, which is the poetry of the process. 



Something on the way seems to touch the bait. Is it a 

 loose weed ? It may be a submerged branch. Here, then, 

 is the first sensation — to determine whether the slight check 

 proceeds from a fish. At any rate, you have paused in 

 action. Sometimes the angler is held in doubt for several 

 seconds. The pike on grabbing the bait (across the middle) 

 has a habit of keeping still, as if to gloat over the cer- 

 tainty of a meal which Providence has at last placed 

 in his way. Before long, however, he will begin to 

 move away, the line running meanwhile free through 



