TACKLE FOR LIVE BAITING. 445 



" Trimmering." A trimmer, properly so called, is a round piece of cork, 

 round the periphery of which line is coiled, and to this depends the 

 double hook live gorge. A peg is placed in the 

 middle, and the line is fixed in it, so that when 

 a fish takes the bait, the line escapes readily. 

 Pig. 67 exhibits the affair in its entirety. 



One side is usually a different colour to the 



other, that if so set, as it may be, that when a 



, ,, , . ,, . , FIG. 67. TBIMMEB. 



fish runs the trimmer turns over ; this may be 



readily seen without disturbing the water. Sometimes a line is affixed 

 to bottles or bladders. 



Sometimes, also a line is attached to a duck or goose, and old Barker 

 chuckles with much emotion over this eccentric pastime. He terms it 

 the "sport of princes," or some such hyperbole is used, and Taylor, 

 who wrote a book on angling, in which he flattered himself he had 

 reduced the art to a complete science, terms this amusement 

 "fluxing." I know of a much better piece of amusement than that, 

 which once occurred when I was fishing in the upper end of Virginia 

 Water some years ago. We had been live-baiting persistently, and, at 

 last, down went my float. I struck and broke my line ; away went the 

 fish into the weeds on the opposite side (it is quite narrow at the spot 

 indicated), and there he tarried. I was just contemplating going round 

 for I hadn't the boat and over the bridge some quarter of a mile distant, 

 when the shepherd from the Model Farm put in an appearance, followed 

 by a true old lurcher and a little wiry rough-coated mercurial terrier, 

 famed for miles for her vermin-killing propensities. I said, "I wonder 

 if Juno," that was the bitch's name, " will go out and fetch that float," 

 and, so saying, I pitched out a pebble to within a yard of it. In went 

 the little bitch, and by dint of throwing another pebble or two I got her 

 to understand what was wanted. She had soon seized the float, and then 

 came the tug of war. Juno had been taught in early life to " never leave 

 go," and she was not, at her years, going to do so now. How man- 

 fully the little dog struggled I cannot describe in words. At all events, 

 after a quarter of an hour's fighting with the obstinate fish, she brought 

 him and a bushel of rotten weed to shore, and then, exhausted as she 

 was, revenged herself by barking, biting, and snapping at him, as he 

 struggled on the bank. Such an encounter, it will be acknowledged, 

 beats " fluxing" hollow. 



Another form is a bifurcated branch, round which line is wound and 

 retained in a slit in one of the forks. Of course it is cut to smoothness, 

 and is as nearly like the latter Y inverted as possible. This is suspended 

 to an overhanging branch, and a live bait attached for pike, or a dead bait 



