BAITS AND BAIT-CATCHING. 57 



fact, first, that it can be done in the house before starting ; 

 secondly, that, with moderate care, one bait will often last a 

 whole day ; and, thirdly, that a great saving of time is effected 

 by not having to put on fresh baits after every run, a circum- 

 stance of great importance when it is remembered that pike, 

 like other fish, have a knack of coming on the feed only at 

 certain times, and frequently but for a very short period during 

 the day. 



I have referred to the large size of the eel-baits which may 

 occasionally be used with good results in wide ranges of water 

 where pike are known to be of exceptional size. In Lough 

 Corrib, in Galway, for example, some forty miles long, I have 

 often killed large pike both with the eel-tail and with the whole 

 eel, weighing over half a pound, although I was never so fortu- 

 nate as actually to ' bag ' anything of extraordinary dimensions. 

 Local tradition is, however, rife with accounts of pike of fifty, 

 sixty, and some seventy pounds weight, which have been pe- 

 riodically taken out of this inland sea, and from what I have 

 seen, and_/// myself, during many weeks of fishing in its waters, 

 I can well believe it. Indeed I have little doubt that I have 

 more than once had hold of these monsters, though I never 

 brought one to bank ; but, of course, in the case of such fresh- 

 water sharks, with teeth like bull-dogs, the odds are really very 

 much in favour of the fish. 



I recollect once, when spinning under the north shore, not 

 far from the ' Cut,' in a deep bay surrounded by walls of bull- 

 rushes, suddenly finding that my spinning-bait a whole eel of 

 about half a pound weight was fast very fast indeed in some- 

 thing. From the perfectly passive, and at the same time utterly 

 unyielding nature of the resistance, I concluded I had got 

 hold of a rock or submerged stump, though how such should 

 be found in water which I knew to be twenty feet deep at 

 least was somewhat unaccountable. I had very powerful 

 new gimp tackle, a strong line, and a stout rod, and I 

 spared neither in my unsuccessful attempts to get clear, still 

 without the slightest signs of the obstacle, whatever it was, 



