THE PIKE. 7 



come in for their full share of the education movement, and the 

 troller who at the end of the nineteenth century would expect 

 to make undiminished catches must devote both time and 

 attention to refining to the very utmost every part of his 

 equipment. 



' Every hook in the spinning flight, every link in its trace, 

 becomes in his view an object of importance, because it is not 

 only positive but comparative excellence which he must aim at. 

 Other trailers will take advantage of the latest ' wrinkle,' if he 

 will not, and the art is not only to fish fine, but, if he wants to 

 make the best basket, to fish finer than anybody else, at least 

 on the same water. It is perfectly true that when the pike is 

 sharp-set he is, as I have said, practically omnivorous, but 

 where fine fishing and perfection of tackle come in is on the 

 occasions when he is not regularly on the feed, and when his 

 appetite is dainty and requires to be tickled. At these times 

 the man who fishes fine will fill his creel, whilst he who uses 

 coarser tackle will, in all probability, carry it home empty. 



' But it is not only as regards the basket that fine fishing is 

 an object worth aiming at. It is the only mode of fishing that 

 really deserves the name of sport ; to haul out a miserable pike 

 with an apparatus like a barge pole and a meat-hook neither 

 demands skill nor evokes enthusiasm. There is no " law " 

 shown to the fish, and not the slightest prowess by the fisher- 

 man; it is simply fish-slaughter, not sport.' 



