TRIMMERING. 141 



boat with the keeper rowing neared it, the jack 

 evidently felt alarmed and dashed away, pulling 

 the bladder under the water from time to time. 

 Nearly twenty minutes were consumed in the chase, 

 and at last the bladder came into contact with a 

 floating branch, got pricked ; and our hopes of a 

 grand fish were dissipated, like the bladder, into 

 thin air. 



"There was a somewhat similar hunt after a 

 claret-bottle, which eventuated in the landing of 

 a 12 Ib. fish. Some of the bottles and trimmers, 

 however, had disappeared altogether, doubtless 

 drawn down into the weedy depths by the jack 

 when they had come to the end of their tether. 

 About ten trimmers could not be found ; on about 

 ten more there were no fish, the gimp of some 

 having been bitten through, or the bait of some 

 rejected after it had been taken. On twenty were 

 jack of some kind, great or small, and on one 

 a grand perch of nearly 4 Ibs. in weight. This 

 may suffice as to the result of the day's or rather 

 night's trimmering." 



But let it be added, that it is not every owner 

 of a lake like this, which was once one of the 

 best private pike fisheries in any of the home 

 counties, who would allow it to be depleted with 

 trimmers. 



When fishing the Avon, at Downton, near Salis- 

 bury, with the late Francis Francis, we saw in the 

 keeper's hut lots of bottle-trimmers, with baits un- 

 removed from some of them, and the lines on all 

 were wet, just as taken from the river. The pike- 

 fishing there in consequence of this trimmering was 

 not worth the trouble of putting rods and tackle 

 together for. Hofland says trimmer-fishing is un- 



