CHAPTER X 



FLOAT-TACKLE AND ITS USES 

 BY JOHN BICKERDYKE 



LIVE-BAITING for jack when I was a boy was not unlike 

 using a floating trimmer at the end of a rod. I still 

 preserve as curiosities some of the huge gaudily 

 painted floats which were then in common use in 

 company with the double gorge hook, the gimp of 

 which was threaded along the side of the unfortunate 

 little fish by means of a baiting needle. On getting 

 a run when the float had disappeared, the angler 

 waited for five or ten minutes. Then he reeled up, 

 struck, and more often than not found that the jack 

 had left the bait, and that the tackle was securely 

 anchored among the stems of the water-lilies or other 

 weeds. The big float and gorge hook still linger in 

 out-of-the-way corners of the kingdom, and I some- 

 times see them in provincial tackle-shops ; but the 

 up-to-date angler would scorn to use them, not only 

 because a gorge hook involves the death of every 



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