:8o THE PIKE. 



good fish in one day ; but I should not like to say by any 

 means that just because on those occasions I was lucky 

 enough to get the fish that those baits will kill any time and 

 under any conditions. It is only by a most careful trial 

 during a number of seasons, and a most careful record of 

 fish caught that a decision affecting this point can be ar- 

 rived at. One season on the Trent there was not another 

 bait that could touch " Bink's Jubilee " spinner as an arti- 

 ,ncial. This is a soft rubber bait, if my memory is to be 

 trusted, while since that time I cannot hear that it has once 

 met with more than ordinary success. A friend of mine 

 who occasionally fishes in the big Irish loughs tells me that 

 one day the pike of those waters seem to prefer a large 

 Devon minnow of a dull brown or blue colour, while the 

 next a bright silver Clipper with a red tassel at the tail 

 seemed to have the greatest attraction ; and still again, tb.e 

 very next day they would not run at either, but would take 

 a huge wobbling spoon. Looking at my own practical ex- 

 perience I am forced to the conclusion that a good plain 

 spoon of some two and a half inches in length, coloured 

 ■either copper or gold on the outside, bright silver inside, 

 with a red line down the centre (this line, by the way, can 

 be painted on with a drop of the varnish mentioned else- 

 where, mixed with a pinch of vermillion, and applied with 

 a small camel-hair brush) is the best artificial that can yet 

 he employed, even if it is somewhat old-fashioned. It must 

 be 35 years since I saw a spoon bait used for the first time 

 down a Lincolnshire canal, and as two or three fair good 

 jack were taken on it on that occasion, I thought it a most 

 wonderful bait. And so it is with most amateur pike spin- 

 ners ; just because a certain artificial on one occasion killed 

 a goo(< bag of fish, they needs must swear by that particular 

 l^ait for ever afterwards. But some of the most curious pike 

 spinning experiences I have ever had have been made up of 

 contradictions pure and simple. One day the jack down 

 a certain stretch of water would come at a bait of one par- 

 ticular shape and colour only, utterly ignoring anything 

 else I happened to try; while the next day that bait itself 

 was left alone and one of the rejected ones of the previous 

 Jay would prove successful. In the face of all these diffi- 



