SPINNING FOR PIKE. 103 



pike particularly) do not feed every day ; like boa-constric- 

 tors they have a heavy gorge about once in two or three days 

 or longer, and then lie torpid for days. This is the habit 

 of the pike in all large aquariums, and it squares well with 

 many hitherto unaccountable peculiarities in the feeding of 

 pike which I have often noticed. 



In fishing for pike, regard is to be had as to whether 

 you wish to take them big or little indiscriminately, or 

 whether you desire only to kill those over a certain size, 

 returning all others to the water. If the latter be your 

 aim, no gorge bait of any kind should be allowed, and 

 the angler should be confined to spinning or snap-fishing. 

 If, however, the former be your wish, you may use any 

 bait or style that suits your purpose. 



The most sportsmanlike way of fishing for pike is cer- 

 tainly by spinning, which is thus practised. The angler 

 takes a small fish (gudgeon, dace, or bleak are preferable 

 - if these cannot be obtained, he may use any other small 

 fish which he can get) ; he then hooks the fish on to his 

 line by a certain arrangement of hooks called a flight or 

 set, so that by communicating a crook to the body or tail 

 it may, when drawn through the water, revolve rapidly on 

 the screw principle. In order to permit the bait so to 

 revolve without twisting the line, a tackle called a trace 

 is used. This is about four or five feet long, and consists 

 of a few strands of stout salmon gut, or of gut twisted, or 

 even of gimp, linked together with a couple of swivels at 

 intervals, about eighteen inches apart, a third swivel 

 being sometimes used, to connect this part of the tackle 

 with the running or reel line ; a good large loop being 

 left at the other end of the trace to loop the flight of 

 hooks on, or for the purpose of changing them at pleasure. 

 A drawing of the trace may be seen surrounding the spin- 

 ning flights in Plate IV. (p. 104). At theH{) end (fig. 

 2) is shown a hook-swivel used for fixing the trace to the 



