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CHAPTER VIII 



THE SPINNING BAIT AND ITS TACKLE 

 BY JOHN BICKERDYKE 



I AM inclined to think that the largest fish are more 

 often caught by spinning than by any other method. 

 In extensive sheets of water it is unquestionably the 

 most deadly method of pike fishing. No doubt if 

 the records of a season were examined it would be 

 found that more pike had been killed on paternosters 

 and other forms of live-bait tackle than on the spin- 

 ning rod, because for one angler who spins, twenty or 

 more use live-bait tackle owing to its easier manipu- 

 lation. But if one could arrive at the exact numbers 

 of spinners and live-baiters and the fish killed by 

 them, then I feel quite sure that the spinners would 

 be found to have had proportionately the better 

 sport of the two. At the same time, to say that 

 spinning is always the best method of pike fishing, 

 and that all other methods are unsportsmanlike, as I 

 have sometimes heard stated, is nonsense. 



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