146 DESCRIPTION OF SPRING SNAP-HOOK. 



If you examine the tackle prefigured, you will 

 perceive that the two large hooks project from a 

 double elastic shank, flat and split, and which slides 

 up and down between two perpendicular wire 

 pillars. They are attached, as well as a small 

 hook, to a movable band above, and when sud- 

 denly and sharply pulled downwards below the 

 band beneath, the elastic shank separates with a 

 strong spring ; and the result is the insertion of 

 both hooks, or at least one, within the mouth of 

 the fish that seizes it, and at which you sharply 

 strike. 



In the spring, summer, and early autumn 

 months, pike are shy, and fond of basking near 

 the surface of the water ; and if, as Mr. Elaine 

 says, ' one of them does seize the bait at these 

 times, he is apt not to pouch or gorge it, but, 

 after roving about with it in his mouth for some 

 time, he ejects it or blows it out, as anglers term 

 it.' Hence, then, the utility of snap-hooks, to 

 meet by prompt striking the snapping, and not 

 the gorging, of pike. 



Captain Williamson says : ' At such times they 

 will seize a bait with great seeming eagerness, 

 but for the most part relinquish it almost instan- 

 taneously. When j ack are thus shy, the angler must 

 take them at the snap that is, he must be quick 

 in striking so soon as the bait is seized. This 

 requires a particular apparatus, whereby the fish 



