Paying the Pike. ■ 88 



on to our destination. At Bunkemout junction we found a trap waiting. 

 A drive of three miles brought us to the keeper's cottage, a paradise of 

 woodbine, china, roses, &c., in the summer, and pretty enough even now. 

 Alfred was waiting for us, and getting the cans and baskets led the way- 

 down through a sunken lane with high sandy banks, across a field to a 

 line of pollards, and there we were. It was a lovely backwater with a 

 stage of bucks in the middle of it, and looked, as J. said, " doosedly like 

 pike." There were holes and long eddies and shallows, with rushes and 

 reeds here and there, and a proper complement of stubs and piles, of 

 course put there on purpose to lose fish. 



" Well, Alfred, got any fish for us to-day ? " 



"There be plenty there if you can catch 'em, sir. There's one as 

 I do wish you may; he's the biggest I've sin here this many a day; 

 he've yeat a hull brood o' ducks wi' the down for stujfin, drat 'im." 

 " What'U he weigh, Alfred ? " 



" He'll goo ower thirty pound, sir. He mostly lies in that long deep 

 eddy by the pollards, just above the bucks, which is the wust thing in the 

 way as can be ; but there's plenty good ones aside he ; we alius has 'em in 

 here when there's a flood, and the big flood last month have stocked us 

 finely. I think we'll put all the things we don't want to use under the wall 

 by the bucks yanner," and he did so. 



" I shall spin this lower reach below the bucks down, I think, J., unless 

 you prefer to." 



" No, I'll put on a live snap, and try the pool above the bucks," said J., 

 and the rods being soon together, the tackle fixed, and the baits on, I turned 

 down stream and began. 



It was rather more streamy below the bucks, and that was why I chose 

 spinning. I had, too, a recollection of a good fish I had lost formerly near 

 a willow stump half way down, and good fish have a knack of always 

 occupying a good lair. I had a Chapman spinner — one of Woods' pattern. 

 It saves a lot of trouble — preserves the bait, and always spins fairly — and, 

 as your tail triangle flies loose, it does not miss many fish. I now generally 

 carry three or four of different sizes to suit the baits and the fish, and in 

 five minutes thirty yards of line were flying across the water. 



