BAITS AND BAIT-CATCHING. 41 



which, with a head extemporised out of a flap of the skin, will 

 be found most deadly in many waters. It possesses also the 

 great advantage of being almost ' umvearable-out.' 



Amongst occasional spinning-baits I ought not to omit the 

 stone loach, or ' beaidy,' as he is sometimes called north of the 

 Tweed, which, if you can get him big enough, will give a really 

 brilliant spin, and makes an excellent substitute for the gudgeon 

 as a pike bait in very fine waters. He is, however, almost im- 

 possible to keep alive, and, especially of the size I refer to, net 

 indeed easy to get hold of at all. It is a case of ' first catch 

 your loach.' l The mode of doing so is simply to walk into a 

 stream with a small pronged dinner-fork in your hand and turn 

 up the likely-looking stones. You will soon see when you have 

 disturbed a loach, and, as he never swims beyond a few feet at 

 a time, if, indeed, he does not remain in statu quo, as very 

 often happens, you can easily track him, and then by a sort of 

 eel- spearing operation, transfer him to your bait-box. For 

 trout-spinning on a Scotch or Irish loch there is no better bait. 



Any sea-fish that approximates to the ' dace shape,' such as 

 bass or grey-mullet which is not, that is to say, too broad in 

 proportion to its length, and is sufficiently glittering may be 

 used as a spinning-bait. I have tried sprats and one or 

 two others, but they did not succeed very well, as they seemed 

 to have, one and all, a rooted aversion to remaining on the 

 hooks for above a few casts. Of the other freshwater fish 

 that might possibly be pressed into the spinner's service when 

 nothing else can be got, and which, par parenthhe, nothing can 

 ever make spin decently, are roach, rudd, carp, and goldfish. 



I should think a small barbel would make a very good bait, 

 but I have never tried it. Another bait also that I have never 

 used myself for pike-spinning, but which I have been told is 

 deadly under certain conditions of extreme fineness of water, 



1 The author of ' Lorna Doone ' says that in the stream of Lynn, ' where, 

 however, they were not quite so large as in the Loman,' he has taken 'I caches 

 to the weight of half a pound.' From an eighth to a quarter of an ounce 

 would be much more like the ordinary run. 



