THE FLIGHT. 109 



and tear and rough usage in all sorts of weathers. For 

 this reason the metal reels will be found preferable to the 

 wooden ones. 



The last, and perhaps most important point to be con- 

 sidered, is the flight of hooks on which the bait is to be 

 fixed ; and about this there is a great variety of opinions, 

 some anglers preferring large hooks and some small 

 hooks, some many hooks and some few, some triangles 

 brazed or unbrazed, some doubles and some singles ; in 

 fact, almost every possible combination of hooks and gut 

 or gimp has been tried. The tackle in most general use 

 is the old-fashioned three triangles with a sliding lip-hook 

 (see Plate IV. fig. 1, p. 104). Some use four triangles 

 and a lip-hook, some have a double set of hooks or a 

 triangle or two on either side of the bait ; but I have 

 never found that the multiplying of hooks beyond a 

 certain point increases the certainty of capture rather, 

 indeed, the reverse, for the hooks are apt to entangle, 

 and one interferes with the action of the other. I have 

 seen the hooks which have been rejected by a pike on 

 several occasions come up . all hooked and tangled to- 

 gether, almost in a ball, and each hook had evidently 

 been instrumental in dragging the other from its hold. 

 How much more useful would have been one single fair- 

 sized hook well stuck in. Added to this, anglers should 

 remember that it is far more difficult to drive four or 

 five hooks simultaneously into the jaw of a pike than it is 

 to drive one. Let the angler take a single hook, place 

 the point against any substance and give it a pull so as to 

 embed the barb, and then let him take an ordinary spin- 

 ning flight and fix the points of two hooks in each tri- 

 angle on the same substance and take a pull at the flight, 

 and I do not think I am far out in my calculation when I 

 say that it requires five times the force to bury the barbs 

 of the many that w ould be required for the single hook 



