CHAP. v. Adjusting the Bait. 67 



the ends. Do not use white thread for this, because it will show, but 

 stout black thread, double, or any dark coloured knitting silk double, 

 say brown for preference. Your bait is then ready for use. 



This may seem a long, troublesome, and fidgety process, but it 

 should not occupy as long in the doing as it does in the describing, and 

 if you have an attendant with you, he can always be preparing a bait 

 for you while you are fishing, and whenever your bait is spoilt by a* fish, 

 or by long or rough usage, you can at once change it for a fresh one, by 

 using the double loop recommended in the chapter on tackle, in the 

 manner there suggested. This change can be effected in about ten 

 seconds, or may be less, and the soiled bait left for the attendant to 

 remove from the hook and replace by another fresh one. 



If you have not got a treble hook, a single bare salmon hook can 

 be used very well for this purpose, the hook being pulled into the vent 

 after the line, shank foremost, till the fish is well down on to the bend 

 of the hook, and there is really little more than the point showing. A 

 No. 4/0, 5/0, or 6/0 Limerick hook will do very well for this purpose. 



The only objection I have heard made to this mode of baiting is 

 that the bait is apt to bend too much by draggling down on to the 

 hook, because there is nothing in the line to give it rigidity and keep 

 it straight. But I have not found this myself if care is taken not to 

 embed the hook further away from the head than the vent hole, and if 

 it be a fault it is one that is easily remedied by inserting the baiting 

 needle not at the anus, but a trifle nearer the head. In such case 

 insert it not in the stomach, which is liable to tear away, but in firm 

 flesh half-way up the side, and take care to pass the baiting needle, not 

 simply under the skin, but through a good piece of flesh so as to give 

 a hold, and also embed one of the hooks thoroughly well into the side 

 till the other two lie quite flat against it. Pass the baiting needle out 

 of the mouth and proceed as before. This for objectors, but I prefer 

 the use of the vent hole as it tears less, and is in my opinion not at all 

 too far back; indeed I sometimes insert the one embedded hook a 

 little further aft than the vent, because the vent is differently placed in 

 different fish, and some require a little more bend to make them spin. 

 The opposition of the water makes the bait hang back on the hook, so 

 as to draw up the tail, and create bend enough to make it spin. 



But there is one objection to this mode of baiting which I will 

 freely admit. If your bait is not the Ophiocephalus gachua^ but of a 



F 2 



