418 SALMON AND TROUT. 



make your line to revolve quickly enough to conceal your hooks, 

 and to reflect the light brilliantly as it moves, thus inducing the 

 trout whom you ' go for ' to take it freely and boldly. If the 

 inducement offered proves sufficient, and a good fish seizes your 

 bait in earnest, there is little doubt of your holding him securely 

 whatever ' formula ' of hooks you may have adopted. Four or 

 five times in the course of my Thames spinning, I have indeed 

 felt a hasty touch, like that of a short-rising fish on a fly, 

 denoting a timid or half-hearted attempt on the part of a sus- 

 picious trout, but once only did I lose a fish fairly ' held,' and 

 then, I believe, through my own fault. But though my expe- 

 rience leads me to attach little importance to the arrangement 

 of hooks in detail, it may justify me in recommending one par- 

 ticular flight, with which I have killed scores offish, if not as the 

 best yet at least as sufficiently effective, both for the spinning and 

 the hooking. It includes ten hooks ; first one, sliding very 

 stiffly, for the lips of the bait ; then a triangle nearly an inch 

 lower, consisting of one lip-hook for fixing in the bait, and two, 

 Limerick for choice, forming angles of 120 with the fixed 

 hook. Next come two, back to back, one being a lip-hook for 

 holding, while the other stands rankly out ; then another triangle 

 like the first, and finally, close below this, a Kirby hook, shortened 

 in the shank. These properly applied, will give the bait the 

 true form for rapid and regular spinning, and will enable it to 

 maintain that form for half an hour or more of constant throwing 

 if you are skilful enough to avoid checks or jerks. I must, 

 however, admit that this ' true form,' which begins with a straight 

 line and ends with a gradually increasing curve, is not easily 

 attained in baiting a bleak. Bait fish whose bodies are nearly 

 cylindrical, like a baby chub or dace, or that best of lures on 

 a bright day, a small gudgeon, revolve easily and steadily and 

 need comparatively little skill in placing them on the hooks, but 

 your flat- 1. odied bleak is a ticklish subject to deal with. The 

 curve must be very true ; the holding hooks must sit very close, 

 or the result will be an unsightly wobble. I confess to having 

 wasted scores of bleak, or at least left them fit only for eel-lines 



