

THE PIKE, JACK, OR LUCE. 153 



bait from the bottom, although some authors contend it is impossible, 

 from the position of the creature's eyes and the slope of its jwas. Their 

 argument is good, but the stern logic of facts is better in deciding the 

 point. I have had a jack pick up the gorge hook, and it is well known 

 that at Hendon the invariable practice is to fish live-baiting with a 

 leger. Indeed, on speaking to a friend, who is an excellent fisherman, 

 about the matter, he assured me that he always fished with his bait on 

 the bottom in deep water in preference to the usual orthodox plan. 

 The usual methods of angling for pike are trolling, spinning, and live- 

 baiting and fly-fishing. 



The art of trolling with a gorge hook has an ancient history, and 

 seems to have been more highly respected in past times than any other 

 species of arrangement for taking pike. Although we have no means of 

 knowing if the ancients practised it for the capture of this parti-colour 

 fish, the form of angling is described by Oppian in lines which have been 

 translated with considerable vigour as follows : 



He holds the labrax, and beneath his head 

 Adjusts with care an oblong shape of lead, 

 Named from its form a dolphin ; plumbed with this 

 The bait shoots heailong through the blue abyss. 

 The bright decoy a living creature seems, 

 As now on this side, now on that, it gleams, 

 Till some dark form across its passage flit, 

 Pouches the wire, and finds the biter bit. 



A considerable quantity of hooks, dug out of the ruins of Pompeii 

 (now in the museum at Naples), are thus described: "Some of them 

 are double backed, others are fixed back to back and fastened to wire, 

 as in the modern gorge hook. Some of the larger of these are 

 leaded, the lead being conico-cylindrical in shape, and named dolphin, 

 after a certain resemblance to that fish." Clearly this is the kind of 

 hook referred to by Oppian. 



Trolling, or, as formerly spelt, " trowling " from the French troler, 

 to lead about is generally supposed to have been originated by Nobbes, 

 and in consequence the sobriquet of "Father of Trollers " has been 

 attached to his name. In the sense of an inventor this appellation is not 

 just, and, indeed, is indirectly repudiated by Nobbes himself. In the 

 preface to his book he ascribes all his skill as a troller to the tuition of 

 the " Right Worshipful James Tryon, Esq., of Bull wick, Northampton- 

 shire," and in addressing the "ingenious reader" he adds : "I confess 

 I have not had that experience in the art which many have that have 

 made it their business for the space of several years, and I but a late 

 pretender." Nobbes wrote in 1682, and is unquestionably the first 

 writer who goes into trolling exhaustively. 



To prove, however, that trolling is really of more ancient origin ia 

 England, I may refer to the " Booke of Leonard Mascal " (which by the 



