i8o THE PIKE 



will go on for as much as a minute, the angler doubting 

 whether it is a fish or merely the movements of the 

 bait. There need be no delay in striking when once 

 it is certain that a pike has seized the bait. Some 

 few pike fishers make a practice of letting the pike 

 go off with the bait when paternostering, and 

 partly gorge it. But this is a bad plan (unless 

 the bait be large and a single hook is used), for 

 as often as not the lead catches in something, - 

 checks the fish in its run, and the bait is quickly 

 ejected. On the whole, I am inclined to rank this 

 method of pike fishing next to and not long after 

 spinning. It is extremely pretty and delicate work 

 dropping the paternoster among the reedy and 

 weedy haunts of the pike in late summer and autumn. 

 In winter the eddies, big and little, may be searched, 

 and if the water be at all thick we can with this 

 tackle work the bait close against the bank, almost 

 among the roots of the sedges, where many a good 

 fish lies out of the swirling current. 



It will probably surprise not a few pike fishers 

 to read that pike can be, and indeed often are, 

 caught on the ledger, a tackle generally associated with 

 barbel fishing. With other live-bait tackles it will be 

 observed that the line rises up more or less vertically 

 through the water, and almost immediately above the 



