1 70 THE PIKE 



large roach, which are, as a rule, extremely unsatis- 

 factory baits, it being difficult to hook the pike 

 which seize them. 



After thinking the matter over, I had come to the 

 conclusion that it was necessary with a large bait to 

 have a triangle on both sides, and that the shoulder of 

 the bait, as well as the middle, required arming. To 

 effect this I made a saddleback tackle with the gimp 

 on one side longer than on the other. A single hook 

 was used to fix the tackle to the back of the fish. 

 On one side hung down the short length of gimp 

 with a triangle at the end of it, while on the other 

 was the longer length of gimp with a triangle which 

 was fixed in the shoulder of the bait. One grave 

 objection, however, I found both to this and to the 

 two-triangle tackle previously mentioned, was that 

 when one struck a pike a hook of the lower triangle 

 was dragged into the bait. To obviate this I reversed 

 one of the hooks and used it to attach the triangle to 

 the bait, so that when the angler struck, the triangle 

 was dragged out of the bait and into the mouth of 

 the pike. I have had this tackle in use now for many 

 years, and it has been adopted and copied by most of 

 the tackle-makers, and is, I believe, generally approved 

 by pike fishermen. I find, however, that men who 

 do not possess much manipulative skill have a little 



