PIKE FISHING-SPINNING. 85 



allowed to pick out myself at a trifling extra cost, I dressed a 

 flight of hooks in this manner, and I cannot but think that the 

 picked hog's bristle makes a very perfect flying-triangle so far as 

 elasticity is concerned, whilst I should doubt its being ' cutable ' 

 by the teeth of a pike unless of very exceptional dimensions. 



THE TRACE. 



Travelling upwards from the hooks the next point we come 

 to is the trace. Upon this, the intermediate link between the 

 bait and the reel-line, depends only in a secondary degree the 

 neatness and efficiency of spinning-tackle, and the first point to 

 decide is of what material the trace should be. Any sort 

 of wire, gut, or gimp, which is not too clumsy, will answer the 

 purpose to a certain extent, but the point to be aimed at is to 

 secure the utmost possible amount of fineness combined with 

 the requisite strength, and here I may be, perhaps, allowed to 

 quote a few remarks from my pamphlet, ' How to Spin for Pike.' 



' It has become a habit with many fishermen to consider 

 the pike as a species of fresh-water shark, for whose voracious 

 appetite the coarsest bill of fare and the most primitive 

 cookery only are required. To a certain extent this view is 

 founded on fact. There are few morsels so indigestible that, 

 if they come in his way, a really hungry pike will not make 

 an effort, at least, to bolt. I have known one to be taken with a 

 moorhen stuck in his throat, the feet protruding from his mouth, 

 and bidding fair to have choked him in a few minutes, had not 

 destiny, in the shape of a landing-net, reserved him for a more 

 aristocratic fate. In the Avon three pike were not long ago 

 found on a trimmer, one inside the other ; whilst it is well known 

 that watches, spoons, rings, and even, it is stated, the hand and 

 fingers of a man have been taken out of this fish's maw. 



' But the fallacy of the opinion, or rather of the theory 

 based upon it, lies in the assumption that because a hungry 

 pike will take this or that, a pike that is not hungry will do the 



