134 HAND-LINK TROLLING. 



and agreeable way of fishing for them. In shallow pools, 

 where there is very little water above the weeds, it will b& 

 found the most serviceable. There are many such places 

 which are full of jack, and which it would be found very 

 difficult perhaps to fish in any other way. But it, need 

 not be used exclusively in such spots, as it kills well at 

 times even in deep water if the fish are on the feed. 



In some places, particularly in the Hampshire Avon, a 

 rather primitive way of trolling is still indulged in : the 

 tail and the head of a small eel are cut off and joined 

 together, and one large hook being run down through 

 the centre, so as to bend the tail sufficiently, it becomes a 

 by no means ineffective spinning-bait, though somewhat 

 of the rudest. I have seen it used on a long horsehair 

 knotted line, with a yard of fine whipcord, one coarse 

 swivel, and a small bullet. The line is coiled round the 

 arm, and no rod being used, the bullet is swung round 

 and then jerked out into the water, being drawn in hand 

 over hand. When a run ensues, the fish is struck and 

 ] dayed by hand. This is perhaps the rudest fashion of 

 spinning for pike extant, and must be a relic of the bar- 

 barous ages, I should imagine. 



It is no uncommon thing for pike to take a worm ; I 

 once captured four in one evening with a small red worm 

 and tench tackle, losing two others, which managed to cut 

 the hook off; and, on subsequent occasions, I took seven 

 or eight more, 'one or two a day, in the same piece of 

 water. They will also run at anything moving. I was 

 tench-fishing on the same water towards dusk on one of 

 these days, when a fish ran at and took my float as I was 

 drawing it slowly towards me along the surface ; he got 

 his teeth into the cork and could not get rid of it at first,. 

 and I played him for a minute or so until he managed to- 

 get quit of it. 



Having now told the young angler how to prepare and 



