56 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



about the size of a smaU humble bee, of a light brown colour, 

 and are covered with a hard shell. When you have captured 

 a quantity of them, they can be kept in a perforated tin along 

 with a few leaves, the leaves from an elm are the best, 

 by this means they can be kept alive for several days. They 

 can be used with the ordinary rod, reel, and line of the Not- 

 tingham bottom fisher, some anglers using a float with a few 

 big shots close to it. The locust, of course, has to swim on 

 the top of the water. I don't like a float myself for this 

 bait, preferring to throw them out like an artificial fly. If 

 the angler has a fourteen feet double-handed fly rod with a 

 fly reel and line, these will be better for locust fishing than 

 the ordinary rod. The fisher need not be particular about the 

 fineness of his tackle, and for this about four or five feet of 

 middling strong gut with a large loop on each end (one loop 

 is to knot the reel line to, and the largest loop is at the 

 bottom, to which the rest of the tackle is fastened). For the 

 extreme bottom tackle take a longish length of fine gut and 

 double it, it will then be a long loop (about six inches long), 

 take then two No. 8 hooks and whip them back to back on 

 the ends of the last-mentioned loop, so that the two ends of 

 the tackle and the two hooks are perfectly fast together. The 

 angler will require a baiting-needle, and for this purpose a 

 stocking-needle about three inches long and as thin as you 

 can get one, with a nick filed in the bottom of the eye will be 

 the very thing ; slip the loop of the bottom tackle in the nick 

 that you have filed in the eye of the needle and then push 

 the needle completely through the locust lengthways from 

 head to tail. Draw the locust itself up to the bend of the 

 hooks until the hooks lie as it were upon the shoulders of 

 the bait. You must take care that the points of the hooks 

 are bare, and not hid in the locust at all, as the hard shell 

 will prevent you from hooking your fish. The two 

 sections of the tackle now want fastening together, and this 



