88 THE PIKE 



gorge bait, and it is the strong point of its sports- 

 manlike successor. The bait touches the bottom, is 

 worked up and down, and often, therefore, brings 

 spoil to the basket when other means fail. Holes, 

 eddies, backwaters, and the weedy reaches are the 

 situations where the tackle may be used with effect. 



For the same reasons and in the same places the 

 paternoster should be the tackle for live baiting. It 

 is not easy to adjust float tackle to the required 

 depth. This may be done in lakes, but the flow of 

 the river carries the live fish that is kept in place by 

 the float at varying speeds over varying depths past 

 the game. The paternoster brings it tolerably close, 

 and it has the advantage of remaining in one spot, with 

 every lively movement exciting the watchful pike. 



These are the methods best adapted also for 

 highly coloured water. Water a little clouded is best 

 for spinning. A very clear river is more suitable for 

 live baiting, for in spinning it is with pike as with 

 salmon : the fish lying low must see a good deal of 

 the line and attached apparatus before the lure itself 

 comes into view. I have known pike taken in yellow 

 flood water by the use of the leger, but the paternoster 

 for the living and the aforesaid snap tackle for the 

 dead bait are the methods to be mostly relied upon 

 under such circumstances. 



