30 THE PIKE. 



Ireland and Scotland who swear by them. They say that 

 they cannot for the life of them throw a bait direct from a 

 Nottingham reel, and find the Malloch one of the most use- 

 ful inventions they ever tried. Personally, I never used one 

 in actual pike fishing; I have seen and examined them. 

 Once I tried my hand at throwing a bait across a grass lawn 

 with one, and consider them wonderfully ingenious, and cal- 

 culated to assist those pike fishermen who are really baffled 

 in their efforts to master the peculiarities of the ordinary 

 Nottingham reel. Another pike reel that has been a great 

 favourite for many years now was invented by Mr. David 

 Slater, and christened by him " The Combination." In an 

 ordinary Nottingham reel, anglers who are not very expert 

 pike bait throwers find that the line in casting gets outside 

 and hanks itself round the handles, or even sometimes a 

 long loop drops down and catches round the bottom of the 

 butt end of the rod. The revolving barrel of Slater's reel 

 runs in a cage that is fixed firmly to the back, and certainly 

 this is the best invention that I am as yet acquainted with 

 for keeping the line in its proper position. The Bickerdyke 

 line guard is also supposed, when fixed to an ordinary Not- 

 tingham reel, to stop the line from overrunning; but this 

 guard, useful as it undoubtedly is, is not, in my opinion, 

 equal to Slater's cage guard. In the Bickerdyke guard there 

 is nothing to prevent loose line from falling out at the under 

 side of the reel. It does, however, keep the line from fall- 

 ing over the top and catching round the handles. I have 

 had one of Slater's cage guard reels in constant use for 

 many years now for pike fishing. I believe my reel was the 

 first, or very nearly the first, that Mr. Slater made ; anyhow 

 I have had it since 1882. It is a plain spindle reel without 

 check action, four and a half inches in diameter. Those 

 anglers who really must spin with the line coiled at their 

 feet, and really cannot be persuaded to try any other plan, 

 need not be so particular as to the choice of a reel, a plain 

 wooden or brass one, provided it is large enough to hold 

 the line, will do very well. 



Of late years so many reels have been invented for pike 

 fishing that the anxious novice is apt to get bewildered, and 

 be nearly at his wits end in making a selection. There is 



