CHAPTER IV. 

 THE PIKE (continued). 



SPINNING WITH A NATURAL BAIT. 



Spinning, what it is — A simple spinning tackle — The Chapman 

 spinner and its contemporaries — Flights and their Jises — The spinning 

 trace — Best baits for spinning — " The Trent Otter's" spinning flight — How 

 to bait it — A good season — Honv to spin to have the best results — Different 

 methods for different waters — Condition of the water — Clouded v. clear 

 water spinning — Spinni?ig in deep and sluggish waters — Changing the 

 bait — Strikitig, playing, and landing a pike — Haunts of the pike during 

 the Different months — Spinning leads — Preserving dead baits. 



Spinning for pike with a natural or artificial bait has been 

 a favourite pastime of mine for many years now ; in fact I 

 look upon spinning as being the most scientific as well as the 

 most sportsmanlike of all the many plans that are adopted 

 for the capture of our fresh-water shark. Of course, I am 

 aware that there are certain waters containing pike in which 

 it would be utterly impossible to work a spinning bait, or 

 even for the matter of that a live bait. Obstructions and 

 weeds might be so strongly and thickly in evidence that the 

 novice would despair of ever getting a bait in, to say nothing 

 of safely getting it out again. I shall show presently how 

 it is possible to fish a place like that ; for the present my 

 object is to give a few plain instructions on spinning over 

 the more open waters with a dead natural bait. 



I svppose I need not tell the amateur that spinning is 

 done by fixing a small fish on an arrangement of hooks in 

 such a manner that when drawn through the water it looks 

 like a wounded or disabled fish trying to escape from some 

 imaginary foe, the main object being to have as much of the 

 bait and as little as possible of the hooks visible. The 

 spinning bait must also be kept constantly moving, that is, 

 turning over and over more or less slowly or rapidly, as the 



