THE PIKE. 375 



the body into the stream, or from the boat. You will find 

 the weight of your bait will run out twenty or thirty feet of 

 line; draw in the tip of your rod sideways about two feet, 

 then allow the bait to sink a little, giving it a moment's rest, 

 then gently jerk the tip sideways two or three feet; and 

 keep on in this way until the bait is almost under your rod. 

 Practice soon renders angling for Pike almost perfect in cast- 

 ing, when one has good fishing tackle. The angler should 

 never be satisfied until he can lay out seventy to one hundred 

 feet of line, with no other sinker than a common buckshot, 

 and a silver shiner (L. selene). 



But to young anglers whose purse is often slender, and to 

 whom a Milam reel is a luxury, the art of casting for Pike 

 can be attained with a little diligence. My earlier experi- 

 ence in Pike-fishing has never been forgotten; my pole was 

 a strip of white pine cut from a clear board twelve feet long, 

 tapered into shape, the standing guides whipped into it; my 

 reel a primitive one made by myself, and with no multiplier. 

 My practice was to gather up the line in folds in left-hand, 

 holding the rod along the right side and extending under the 

 forearm to the elbow. This steadied the rod and gave good 

 casting power. 



By gathering up the line in the left hand in folds or plaits 

 you can readily loop up fifty feat of line, and casting out as 

 described before, drop your bait almost within a foot of any 

 desired point, without a snarl or kink in the line. By closing 

 the fingers over the line you can hold all you need for cast- 

 ing. I often do this now, though possessing better tackle 

 than anglers dreamed of in earlier days. 



An old Englishman named George put some wrinkles of 

 this kind into my head, and they have stayed by me. He was 

 a genuine cockney, and in spite of his continual assertions 

 that "They do things better at 'ome," George did know 

 how to lay out a line "fine and far off," as the Thames fish- 

 ermen called it. 



