CHAPTER VI 



THE ANCIENT ART OF TROLLING 



AMONGST the many things which in our young days 

 we accept as honestly expedient, in course of time to 

 be taught that they are not lawful, must be included 

 the art of trolling mentioned in the previous chapter. 

 It is in recent times that this old-fashioned method 

 of catching pike has been widely discountenanced. 

 Two or three sound reasons are accepted for 

 the discontinuance of a practice which was held in 

 honour for centuries. The question of cruelty had 

 better perhaps be passed over in silence, or at most 

 with the confession that this is probably a style of 

 angling which gives most pain to the captured fish. 



The strongest argument against trolling was the 

 knowledge that, as it must be fatal to every fish 

 hooked, undersized pike were slaughtered. Time was, 

 maybe, when this did not matter ; but as anglers 

 multiplied, and the single spies became battalions, it 

 was perceived that the stock of fish was dangerously 



