TACKLE FOR LIVE BAITING. 



443 



thus causes great inconvenience. (It will be seen I am leaving out the 

 question of pain for the moment.) Another method, and the ordinary 

 one in use at the present day, is to pass the hook 

 (a) under the root of the dorsal fin. This is 

 superior from an angling point of view, because 

 no baiting needle is necessary, an item of import- 

 ance on a cold day. Another style is in the hook- 

 ing of the fish through the lip, and the placing a 

 triplet so that one of its hooks are fastened 

 through the root of the back fin. Each one of 

 these methods causes the fish unnecessary pain, un- 

 necessary because as good a result can be secured 

 by another means at much less a cost of pain to 

 the bait. One of these is as follows (Fig. 65). A 

 is an india rubber band, which can be passed over 

 the ventral fins, and to the side of the dorsal, 

 thus retaining the triangle hook in its place be- 

 tween the two. A lip hook is passed through the 

 upper and lower lips, and the affair is complete. 

 The pain that is caused is only when the hook 

 is passed through the lip, and this is, compared 

 with that of the threadling process, infinitesimal. 

 The whipping of the india rubber band to the 

 shank of the triplet is not shown in the out, but it 

 should be whipped securely, and of course when 

 baiting the head of the bait is slipped through the 

 band in the direction of the lip hook until the band 

 rests behind the ventrals as described. The lip 

 hook is then drawn down and fixed through the top 

 lip of the bait, and the trace, to the end of which 

 a piece of pliant line has been whipped it ties 

 better than gimp is tied securely in the loop 

 shown in Fig. 65. From the fact of the triplet being 

 rather to the side of an ordinary pike's mouth if 

 one is fishing with a bait suitable to the tackle 

 here shown, there is a really great chance of 

 hitting your fish in his most vulnerable part and 

 at once. Then the vexatious five or ten minutes 

 is obviated, for it is unnecessary to wait as in 

 ordinary gorge fishing. 



The inveterate snap fisher may, however, assert that this tackle 

 impedes the free movements of the bait by hooking it by the nose, and so 



FIG. 65. HUMANE LIVE 

 BAIT SNAP. 



