PIKE-FISHING 175 



that the dressing and stuffing should be as savoury and 

 nutritive as possible, so that something edible may remain 

 when you have thrown the fish away. 



Adepts at pike-angling are enthusiastic about the game 

 qualities of their quarry. The great size to which pike attain, 

 An ling for tne ^ r boldness in seizing the bait, and the powerful 

 Pike, fight they make when hooked, certainly add zest to 

 the sport which is denied to the angler for other coarse fish. 

 There is, however, one feature in the craft which must always 

 operate against its claim to be reckoned in the first rank, 

 namely, the strength of the tackle which must be used. A 

 fifty-pound salmon may be killed upon a strand of single gut ; 

 for the utmost pressure which can be brought to bear by the 

 fisherman upon the fish, provided his rod is kept u in play," 

 amounts to less than 4 Jb., and good salmon gut will bear a 

 strain of 8 Ib. or 9 Ib. But the teeth of a pike, even though 

 he be of no more than mediocre dimensions, will soon saw 

 through the strongest gut, and it is necessary to use metal 

 gimp next the hook. A trace of sound gimp is generally 

 strong enough to lift the dead weight of any fish that may 

 be hooked, so that, even if the rod is pulled out of play, the 

 tackle will stand a direct pull upon the reel line, which would 

 be fatal in salmon-fishing. 



It may be noticed in the list of large pike at page 172 that 

 most of these fish were taken with what is known to anglers 

 as " snap-tackle." In this method a hook is fixed in the dorsal 

 fin of a live fish, such as a small dace or trout, and the other 

 hooks are arranged over the head of the bait. A float is used, 

 and adjusted so as to keep the bait about mid- water. It is not 

 unnatural that many persons feel a dislike to tormenting a live 

 fish by offering it as a lure to its deadliest enemy, and for these 

 Mr. R. B. Marston has invented a snap-tackle for use with 

 a dead fish. With this a float is not used ; the bait is offered 

 to the pike with a sink-and-draw motion, and it is said to be a 

 method quite as successful as the other. 



