74 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



seven-inch dace suitable for flight No. 3 it is exceedingly 

 difficult, unless you have an enormously stiff and heavy rod 

 \vhich to my mind takes away half the pleasure of spinning 

 to strike with sufficient force to overcome the resistance offered 

 by so large a bait held tightly across the pike's jaws. 



On the whole, though I do not deny that there may be 

 exceptional waters in which large baits are used with advan- 

 tage, for my own taste I rarely spin with a flight larger than a 

 No. 2, and as a rule never with one larger than No. 3. 



The question of the relative sizes and proportion of the 

 hooks and flight to the bait is a vitally important one, both in 

 arriving at a brilliant spin, and in hooking and basketing the 

 fish struck, and I would suggest to every spinner to carry cer- 

 tainly the two smaller of these sizes in his trolling-case, and, if 

 there is any chance of heavy baits being employed, No. 3 

 also. A very good-sized flight might also be made somewhere 

 between Nos. 2 and 3. Any fishing-tackle maker ought to be 

 able to make this tackle with absolute accuracy by simply dress- 

 ing from the diagrams, and there ought to be no difficulty in 

 their doing so if the customer will only himself insist upon 

 the flights being exactly reproduced. 1 



This observation applies not only to the material of which 

 the spinning-flight should be made, and to the sixe, propor- 

 tion, and position of and between the hooks, but also in a 

 primary and all-important degree to the shape of the hooks 

 themselves. The difference in killing power between a triangle 

 of Limerick hooks, for example, and one of my pattern, 

 shown in the engraving, is not less than 100 per cent, against 

 the former ; the Round and Kendal bends standing about 

 midway between the two. Here again, if hookmakcrs would 

 only consent to be taught by practical fishermen, instead of 

 flooding the markets year after year with obsolete and worthless 

 patterns, there ought to be no difficulty in giving the exact bend 

 of hook, length of shank, &c., as figured in the woodcut (fig. i). 



1 I hnve supplied patterns of those flights and my other pike-tackle to 

 Mr. Charles Farlow, 191 Strand. 



