BAITS AND BAIT-CATCHING. 43 



To pass from spinning to live-baiting. Of the baits already 

 recommended for the former, the dace will be found, on the 

 whole, the best for live-baiting, except when the paternoster is 

 used, in which case a gudgeon or large minnow is generally 

 preferred. A roach or rudd also forms an excellent live-bait 

 for large pike, and my experiences with goldfish and carp have 

 been sufficiently encouraging to lead me to think that there are 

 probably many waters where the goldfish especially might be 

 found an attractive bait, and a few where none other would be 

 looked at. Both goldfish and carp are very tenacious of life, 

 and consequently fulfil satisfactorily the primary condition of a 

 good live-bait. 



The tench is also a very ' hard dier,' but there is a popular 

 superstition that being a sort of water Esculapius, he is omitted 

 from the menu by the pike and other predaceous fish. To this 

 superstition I purpose to refer at greater length when treating 

 of the tench himself as a sporting fish, and I would only 

 observe here that although I have tried a good many ex- 

 periments with tench as pike-bait, I have never succeeded in 

 actually catching any pike with them. 



A novel way of keeping baits lively when on the hooks, has 

 lately been broached in some of the papers, and Mr. W. Old- 

 ham Chambers, Secretary to the National Fish Culture Asso- 

 ciation, whose labours in the field of fish culture and acclima- 

 tisation are so well known and highly appreciated, writes thus 

 on the subject in the Fishing Gazette of October 25, 1884 :- 



BRANDY AS A FISH REVIVER. 



I have continued my experiments in relation to brandy as a 

 means of restoring suspended animation with quick-dying fish, the 

 results being equally as satisfactory as with carp. 



It was highly interesting to see the plucky manner a trout 

 (S.ferox) battled with his fainting condition and came out the con- 

 queror. Strange to say, the salmon (S. salar) did not once attempt 

 to rouse himself after being dosed, the consequences being fatal to 

 him ; this was the only fish that succumbed under the treatment. 



As regards the dace (Leuciscus vulgaris), I had him out of 



