PIKE FISHING IN RIVERS 85 



common faults of the pike fisherman is spinning too 

 high. Here was the fish lying apparently near to the 

 bottom, probably about a foot off, and the angler's 

 spinning bait, which he thought was working deep, 

 was at least four feet above the pike. I gave him 

 the hint, and he then worked the bait more slowly, 

 thereby allowing it to proceed on a deeper course. 

 The pike, who had paid no attention to the bait when it 

 passed over his head (though had he been hungry he 

 would have dashed up at it to the very top, perchance 

 out of the water), gave a little frisk of the tail when 

 the lure travelled at somewhat close quarters. By- 

 and-by he took obvious notice of the bait, moved out- 

 wards, followed it not more than a foot behind ; and 

 then dropped idly back to his place. He noticed the 

 bait as often as it spun by him, but never again 

 moved at it. 



This, however, was a day of experiments, and we 

 tried him again a little later, while the friendly light 

 still gave us a good view of the bottom of the pool. 

 This time, for the sake of change, we rigged up a 

 paternoster with the usual plummet at the end of a 

 salmon gut collar, a gimp single hook with dace next 

 to it, a similar hook with minnow next to that, and 

 a gudgeon above all three baits at intervals of 

 twelve inches. At the first drop of the plummet 



