TR1MMERING. 137 



say the least, it is an unfishcrmanlike way of catching 

 them. As a bit of fun it is sometimes indulged in ; 

 it was considered a fine amusement in " Old 

 Nobbes'" time ; and in The Boke of St. Albans is 

 thus described : " If ye lyst to have good sporte, 

 thenne tye your line to a gose (goose) fote, and 

 ye shall have a gode halynge (hauling), whether 

 the gose or the pyke shall have the better." 



Barker, in his Delight, published in 1653, tells us 

 that " the principal sport to take a pike is to take 

 a goose or gander or duck ; take one of the pike 

 lines, tie the line under the left wing and over 

 the right wing about the body, as a man weareth 

 his belt ; turn the goose off into the pond where 

 the pikes are. There is no doubt of sport, with 

 great pleasure, betwixt the goose and the pike. It 

 is the greatest sport and pleasure that a noble 

 gentleman in Shropshire doth give his friends 

 entertainment with." 



J. J. Manley, in his Notes on Fish and Fish- 

 ing, gives the following account of a tussle be- 

 tween a gander and a pike : " A farmer in the 

 neighbourhood of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, kept 

 a gander who not only had a great trick of wan- 

 dering himself, but also delighted in piloting forth 

 his cackling harem to weary themselves in circum- 

 navigating their native lake, or in straying amid 

 forbidden fields on the opposite shore. Wishing to 

 check this vagrant habit, he one day seized the 

 gander as he was about to take to the water, and, 

 tying a large fish-hook to his leg, to which was 

 attached a frog, suffered the bird to proceed on his 

 voyage. As had been anticipated, the bait soon 

 caught the eye of a greedy pike, which, swallowing 

 the deadly hook, not only arrested the progress of 



